Cholera is an infectious gastroenteritis caused by enterotoxin-producing strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The disease infects humans if the latter eats or drinks food or water that is contaminated with cholera vibrios. For a very long time, it was believed that humans themselves were the most major reservoirs for cholera. However, studies have unearthed evidence that another suitable reservoir for cholera is aquatic environments. 

 

The cholera toxin affects the mucosal epithelium lining of the small intestine, which leads to the best known characteristic of the disease, namely exhaustive diarrhea. The most severe forms of cholera are rapidly fatal. Cholera causes a healthy person’s blood pressure to drop to possibly hypotensive levels, as fast as within just one hour from the time the symptoms start appearing. Some infected patients may die as soon as three hours from the time of infection, if they are not administered medical treatment. The most common course of the disease involves the progress from the first liquid stool to shock in just 4 to 12 hours, followed by death in as soon as 18 hours to as long as a few days, unless the patient is offered oral hydration therapy.

 

According t the United Nations, there have recently been over 1,000 deaths in Zimbabwe caused by cholera in the last outbreak, and there have been a whopping 20,581 cases reported so far. The capital, Harare, was the one that got hit worst, with 9,700 cases suspected of cholera and almost 350 deaths. The cholera epidemic has spread all throughout the country and has even crossed the borders in to the neighboring South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.