Cholera may have been killing people back to 400 BC, but it did not begin to affect America until the start of the second cholera pandemic in 1829. Presidents of the United States James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor.
Today, cholera is a disease that affects underdeveloped countries and affects poor countries, and is usually “an evacuation that does not have access to infrastructure, conflict, or safe drinking water or toure precautions. In a region of the world that has people, “says “Dr. Louise Ivers, director of Harvard Global Health Institute at Harvard University.
In such places, cholera infects 1 million to 4 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization, contributing to around 21,000 to 143,000 deaths per year.
There is what cholera is, what causes it, and how it can be prevented and handled.
What is cholera?
Cholera is a bacterial intestinal infection that leads to severe diarrhea and rapid dehydration, and “can be life-threatening quickly without treatment,” says Dr. Jason Nagata, pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco says.
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Other symptoms include vomiting, extreme thirst, fatigue, muscle cramps, dizziness, and severe dehydration that can lead to death within hours without prompt treatment,” Nagata says. . In fact, without treatment, studies show that cholera can be fatal in 30% to 50% of cases. “A fully healthy young adults can work in the field in the morning and die by the evening,” explained Dr. David Sack, a professor in the international health department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Masu.
Infected individuals lose so many fluids and nutrients from diarrhea and vomiting, and become severely dehydrated and experience organ failure as the system is impacted.
At the same time, not all infected people experience serious cases of the disease, and some people can pass bacteria in feces, with only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.
Raise your head: tap water is generally safe to drink. However, contamination can occur.
What causes cholera?
Cholera is caused by ingesting a bacteria known as Vibrio cholera. When seen in contaminated water and food, Ivers explains, and then produces toxins in the small intestine, leading to severe diarrhea and rapid fluid loss.
Common sources of bacteria include “family shellfish and foods prepared with untreated or contaminated water,” says Nagata. It is more common in poor countries as running water and clean/filtered water are often lacking and can be contaminated by ineffective or non-existent plumbing.
In other words, “feces and vomit from infected people can contaminate water supplies and food, which can then communicate the illness to others,” says Sack. He adds that “people living in the same household or neighbors nearby are at high risk as they may be exposed to the same food and water sources as sick individuals.”
What causes dehydration? This is that fluid loss can have a serious impact on your health.
How is cholera prevented and treated?
The most reliable way to prevent cholera is to drink safe water and eat food prepared with clean water. “It is also wise to avoid the consumption of raw or undercooked seafood and follow proper hygiene and good hygiene practices,” Nagata says. “And the cholera vaccine will be available to travelers to endemic cholera areas,” he adds. The FDA-approved vaccine is oral, named Vaxchora, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that you get it at least 10 days before moving to the region of the world where cholera resides.
Cholera can be treated by drinking lots of clean liquids or by intravenously ingesting such liquids. “The treatment is rehydration because dehydration is the main problem,” says Sack. He adds that antibiotics are sometimes provided. “To kill bacteria to shorten the purge and reduce advance infections of the disease.” Such rapid treatment “reduces the cholera mortality rate to less than 1%,” Nagata says.
In developed countries, clean water and basic medical interventions are easy to provide, but the “challenge” is that “many of the people at the highest risk of cholera are the same people who have access to safe water and medical care. That means there is.”