Cholera

Question: Why does a Cholera vaccine only contain cholera poison and not the cholera bacteria? People can be injected with a vaccine against cholera. The vaccine contains a tiny amount of the cholera poison and NOT the cholera bacteria. As a result people become immune to cholera. But what i don't get is how does the vaccine make a person immune to cholera if they use the poison but not the bacteria? Please help =]

Answer: It's the poison that cholera bacteria produce that makes people ill. By giving someone a little bit of the poison, their immune system can get use to it and remember how to make it harmless in the future. This gives the person immunity to cholera. If you were to inject someone with cholera, they might develop full-blown cholera since the bacteria would reproduce and make a much larger amount of poison before their body learned how to cope. So to summarise, it's safer to give someone a controlled amount of the poison (which is what causes the symptoms anyway) for them to get immune to it than giving them a shot of bacteria. A side note - I think I read somewhere that cholera immunity only lasts for a few months. Not sure if this is of interest or not.

Question: How is CHOLERA bacteria fluid loss related to a potato in salt water? It's for a project. I just don't get it. You put a potato in salt water (something about concentration) and it increases in size. How is fluid loss, (which is what Cholera does) related to the potato?

Answer: the cholera organism produces a powerful toxin that disrupts the water balance in the intestine ..water come into the small intestine with minimal control and thus incerases tremendously the movement of materials through the intestine ..= severe , intractable diarrhea fluid losses that can be lethal beacuse of electrolytes in the fluid being lost.A potato in salt water will shrink because water is being drawn out of the potato to balnce the "water" concentration in the salt solution.

Question: How can we prevent the epidemic of cholera that could be brought to US by our soldiers in Iraq? According to the New York Times, there is an epidemic of cholera in Iraq. The virus (or bacteria) that causes the disease doesn't care whether you are an Iraqi or an American. If an American soldier serving in Iraq catches the disease, he will inevitably bring it to the US. How can we prevent that from happening?

Answer: Shoot all your soldiers returning from Iraq? Prevent your soldiers from returning? Clear out Guantanamo and use the facilities to house all returning US soldiers? View them as bio-terrorists and treat them as such? Do you seriously imagine any non US citizen can give a flying feck what you do with your soldiers bringing in a cholera epedemic?

Question: Can someone please tell me what would happen if an infant contracted Cholera? I can't find much on the internet about it. I want to know what the treatment would be for an infant. A woman just a few houses away from us has Cholera and believes she got it from mowing the ditch where sewage has been seen. THAT is a different story that I really don't feel like getting into at the moment. Our whole community is under a lawsuit for faulty septic tanks. Any info will be appreciated. Thanks =) I live in Southeast Texas about 50 miles south of Houston.

Answer: Diarrhea. The treatment would be lots of fluids, isotonic fluids like pedialyte. Possibly antibiotics. What kills you is the dehydration. It rarely kills anyone with access to medical care.

Question: Is an epidemic of cholera likely to start in the US because of our soldiers returning from Iraq? There is an epidemic of cholera in Iraq. Can our soldiers bring it to the US?

Answer: why not? if Bush can kill off a lot more people then he has his national emergency, he can install Marshall law and declare himself king.

Question: Why do dirty pigs survive and dirty humans die from cholera? Pigs (and cattle generally) roll themselves in their own feces all day. They sleep with the feces, eat nearby them and still are healthy. With humans that's not the case. When sewage waters were dumped in the streets in the middleages, people got the plague, cholera and tons of other infections which eventually led to certain death! Why do animals survive and humans die in such situations? Has it something to do with the antigens of each species?

Answer: It's quite complex. In the wild, pigs are actually quite clean animals. But you are right - in captivity, domesticated pigs are generally kept in filthy conditions. This has meant that only pigs with relatively strong immune systems survive, and would have been part of the original breeding process. Humans would not have *consciously* selected pigs that had strong resistance to disease (they'd have been looking for other factors, like bulk), but since sick animals would die, and not reproduce, strong immunity was selected for. If humans lived in similar conditions, many of us would indeed get sick and die. However, those with stronger immune systems would recover, and would have children with stronger immune systems. And eventually, the illnesses we had suffered from wouldn't effect us as much any more. Fortunately, humans are not so cynical as to behave like this to each other; and we have medicine that can treat these illnesses. So that situation does not arise. Even back when we didn't have as effective medicines, we still did things like quarrantining plague-stricken houses, abandoning the city in "plague season", etc. And we avoided that kind of selection. Of course, none of this stops new diseases arising, to which we (and pigs) have limited immunity. Also - cholera is caused by contaminated drinking water, but the plague is not. The plague is a blood-borne disease, spread by fleas that are carried by rats. When you start to exterminate rats, and when you try not to sleep on flea-infested bedding, the plague goes away. _______________________________________________ PS - in response to CT: Cholera is not a viral disease, it is spread by the bacterium Vibro cholerae.

Question: Is cholera only transmitted through ingestion of dirty water and there is no risk by skin contact ? Don't people get infected by cholera if they wear wading suits and get in contact with dirty water or work in rivers but no ingestion or drinking that water is involved?

Answer: No you have to ingest the water cholera is not spread from person to person from casual contact

Question: Getting through love in the time of cholera? I've been reading love in the time of cholera for about three weeks now. Is it me or did anyone have a hard time getting through the book? I am about 180 pages through but sometimes I feel like the reading is tedious. What did anyone think of this book? Positive/negative reactions appreciated. Thanks!

Answer: I took a long time reading that book too. I even read a few other books whilst I was reading it. I'm not retarded, I read plenty. I think the life time of unrequited love really starts to get to you. It's pretty a-typical. Usually this kind of romance has a greater pay-off. This doesn't give you the story of star-crossed lovers who overcome short term obstacles to be with one another. it's a LIFETIME of waiting. I think it's supposed to have a tedious value. It was hard work for me, but I'm glad I finished it.

Question: How did Cholera effect the western civilization? im writing a paper on how Cholera had a negative effect on Western civilization i need some ideas on how it did.

Answer: When it was determined that the cause of the outbreaks was caused by unsanitary conditions, it caused many cities to build sewers and treat the water.

Question: Cholera: Why are babies who are breast fed less likely to catch cholera than those who are bottle fed? In countries where cholera is common, babies that are breast fed are less likely to be affected by cholera than those who are bottle fed. Why is this? Thanks in advance

Answer: Two reasons: cholera is contracted through contaminated water, and because being breast-fed is better for the child than being bottle fed. If you look on a lot of baby formula, it will say something like 'closest product on the market to actual breastmilk' or 'healthiest product in comparison to breastmilk.' Realistically, we will never be able to make a formula as good as breastmilk. There are certain antibodies that help fight off pathogens that babies need (especially animal babies; a huge part of their immune system is passed on to them through the colostrum in the first few hours of birth through their mother's milk) to survive better. Unless we find a way to get these antibodies into baby formula, it won't ever work. Sorry, not to knock anyone who staunchly believe in bottle feeding, but the biological make-up of human beings indicates that the natural way (breastfeeding) is better than bottle feeding, at least for the first several weeks and months.

Question: cholera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!? it is still popular today? if so where? where did cholera originate? what causes cholera? how do/did docters treart this? is there anything you can do to prevent this? what did docters think caused this dieasase? how many pepople suffer or died from cholera? when was cholera popular?

Answer: I guess you never thought to look it up? Here are some factual websites: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseasein… http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cholera… http://geography.about.com/cs/medicalgeo… http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-908… http://www.comfsm.fm/socscie/histchol.ht… Those should keep you busy for a while.

Question: Can few drops of cholera contaminated water be dangerous? If some1 ingests a few drops of water contaminated with cholera, can he/she fall sick with cholera sickness?

Answer: Yes, cholera is caused by a very potent bacteria. Even highly diluted, cholera will cause sickness.

Question: What date did john snow discover that cholera was in the water? What date did Dr John snow discover that the cholera disease was coming from the broad street pump. Its for my history homework

Answer: It depends on the definition of "discover". In the mid 1800s, most people believed that one could get cholera from breathing foul air. But John Snow, a physician in London, thought that cholera was transmitted through water. He wrote an assay with that theory in 1849. But in 1854, during a large cholera outbreak in London, he actually proved this theory. He made a map of all the houses in London with cholera cases, and he discovered that most cases were clustered around a water pump on Broad Street. He then had the handle removed, so that people had to go to other water pumps. According to this famous story, the cholera cases then dropped dramatically (in reality, the cholera outbreak was already fading out). This is probably the first time that someone took a map to look for disease patterns, and so John Snow is believed to be the first epidemiologist. So although John Snow speculated that water was the source of cholera in his 1849 essay, he proved his theory in 1854. So I think that 1854 is the best answer.

Question: With which human body system is cholera associated with? I am trying to use cholera as a disease for a research report and I cannot find out whether it is the digestive system or another system.

Answer: GI system--though the large bowel is more affected than the small. You loose your ability to absorb water from the GI tract do to damage to the cells there and some of the toxins produced make to move things through your GI tract more rapidly. Put the two together and you will literally CRAP yourself to death. I am talking gallons and gallons of Crap a day. so much so that you can become severely dehydrated and die from renal failure and electrolyte abnormalities. And remember kids...crapping yourself to death is not a pleasant way to die.

Question: When did the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe first start? I know that there are now about 800 deaths but i was wondering how lond this has been going on for.

Answer: Cholera is present in the region; endemic. People have to realise that just because the media hasn't reported it, doesn't mean it wasn't there before we saw the epidemic on the news. Also, the figures are almost certainly underestimates, as many (most?) people who are sick in rural areas for example cannot access mainstream medical care. The media has been focusing on water access in relation to this outbreak, but sanitation and hygiene play at least as big a part (if not bigger) in the spread of cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases. Final point: the case fatality ratio is extremely high in Zimbabwe. Cholera, in a healthy person, is usually self-limiting, and about 1-4% (if that) of people die from it. However, in a population where over 40% are under-nourished, and HIV prevalence is about 1 in 3, we are seeing a very high mortality rate from a disease which is both preventable and treatable (re-hydration and in extreme cases, antibiotics). Shame on humanity.

Question: what percentage of the population gets cholera annually in afghanistan? I need to know for a project, also include a source, i need by tommorow please. The first GOOD AND ACCURATE answer gets the best answer vote.

Answer: Source: World Health Organization (WHO) Date: 21 Jun 2005 Cholera in Afghanistan How many people roughly die of Cholera in Afghanistan? It is very hard to say because in most places you don't get lab results. We can only do estimates. Every year there are outbreaks throughout the country but not necessarily in Kabul where the health facilities are good and where there is the ability to put preventive measures into place. Essentially, you can only confirm Cholera through laboratory results under clinical observation so when we have been able to receive lab results from Islamabad and we know that there is Cholera we have to implement these control measures immediately because it can spread like wildfire otherwise. Source: World Health Organization (WHO) Date: 21 Jun 2005