Cholera

Cholera is caused by infection with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It can result in diarrhoea and can rapidly lead to severe dehydration and death.

History: Cholera became a worldwide problem in the early 19th century. It had long been endemic in India but rapidly spread to Europe and the Americas in the first major pandemic of 1817-1820. At that time steam ships had made international travel much easier and the disease was spread from port to port, becoming the most feared disease in the world. The UK, including the North East, were affected by a number of outbreaks in the 19th century, including the great cholera epidemic in 1831-2.

The prevailing medical understanding of the time was that cholera was spread by the inhalation of contaminated vapours. In 1849 Dr John Snow proposed that cholera was spread by contamination of food or water. In the 1854 epidemic Snow was able to plot the location of deaths from cholera in London and demonstrate that more deaths occurred in the region that drew its water form a downstream location that was contaminated by the city's sewage. He found that in the area around Broad Street in Soho,up to 500 deaths from cholera occurred within 10 days. He persuaded the authorities to remove the handle from the water pump in Broad Street and the infection rapidly subsided. Thanks to advances in public health and sanitation cholera is no longer endemic in Europe and North America. However, it is still common in parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. In particular outbreaks frequently occur after natural disasters or in populations displaced by war, where there is inadequate sewage disposal and contaminated water. (Source: Patient UK)