Brady Gannon
Artifact 8
Cholera is a particularly dangerous disease caused by bacteria that can cause devastating effects to countries and civilizations not only because of its symptoms, but because of its speed, versatility, and mode of transmission. Cholera is responsible for seven pandemics and epidemics in the past two centuries. This disease is mostly prevalent in developing countries, notably areas with little sanitation and poor bathroom conditions.
India for example, is the site for many of these outbreaks. Cholera is a food borne and water borne disease so in areas with public wash sites and poor slaughter and sanitation methods, it becomes very easy for Cholera to spread. What makes India the best breeding ground for Cholera is the fact that there are more smart phones in the country than working toilets. The toilets in India are holes in the ground; human excrement gets drained directly into local waterways which is how people contract the bacteria. Education on sanitation is also not as abundant as it should be, by simply washing your hands or properly washing your food, which also may be infected with Cholera due to the water supply, you are significantly reducing your chances of becoming infected with the bacteria.
Not only is it extremely easy to catch in areas such as India, the disease moves fast, killing victims in as fast as one day. The infected persons suffer from extreme water loss due to diarrhea and their faces become sunken in. Dehydration is the usual killer of people who have Cholera.
The rise in urbanization and people living within close proximity to one another raised the Cholera outbreak risk, this was confirmed by John Snow who conducted a study by looking at people infected with Cholera and where their water supply came from. He determined Cholera was a water borne virus and helped pioneer a path to find a new way to combat the deadly disease.
Although these were great advancements, Cholera is still very much so around today. In 2011 there was an outbreak in Haiti which caused almost half a million confirmed cases. The devastating effects of this outbreak carried on for many years after the first confirmed cases. It was determined that the causes that made this so bad was flooding and poor sewage systems and of course poor sanitation.
Help Received:
Cholera Powerpoint
Eliminating Cholera transplant in Haiti
Cholera videos