Cholera News and Research

Latest Cholera News and Research

Haiti at risk of fresh cholera outbreak after tropical storm Isaac hits island nation

"Rain-battered Haiti is at risk of a fresh cholera outbreak" after "tropical storm Isaac ripped through the impoverished Caribbean island Saturday," children's charity Plan International warns, according to AlertNet.

28 Aug 2012

Sierra Leone cholera outbreak continues to spread

"Sierra Leone's health ministry said Thursday that deaths from a cholera outbreak had reached 220, affecting over 12,000 people in the west African nation, which is struggling to curb the disease," Agence France-Presse reports.

24 Aug 2012

Women in developing countries could play a major role in remedying sanitation and water crisis

People in ancient Rome 2,000 years ago had better access to clean water and sanitation that keeps disease-causing human excrement out of contact with people than many residents of the 21st century, a scientist said here today.

21 Aug 2012

WHO calls for emergency stockpile of cholera vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for the establishment of a global stockpile of the cholera vaccine to respond to outbreaks like the one that has gripped Haiti since an earthquake hit the country in 2010, NPR's "Shots" reports.

21 Aug 2012

Sierra Leone declares cholera outbreak a national emergency

"Sierra Leone has declared a cholera outbreak that has left 176 people dead since the start of the year a national humanitarian emergency, officials said Friday," AlertNet reports, adding, "Jonathan Abass Kamara, public relations officer for Sierra Leone's health ministry, said the outbreak was the worst in the West Africa country's history."

21 Aug 2012

Mali faces 'complex humanitarian emergency' as a result of displacement, food insecurity

"More than 435,000 people have been displaced in Mali, as the country faces a complex humanitarian emergency due to conflict and food insecurity, according to a new report released by the United Nations relief agency," the U.N. News Centre reports.

21 Aug 2012

Blog interviews health reporter regarding Haiti's cholera outbreak

In this post in KPLU 88.5's "Humanosphere" blog, journalist Tom Murphy interviews reporter Jonathan Katz, "the first to break the story connecting U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal to the" cholera outbreak in Haiti.

18 Aug 2012

Cholera affecting refugees in Eastern Congo, MSF reports

"The first case of cholera has emerged among thousands of people in an impromptu refugee camp in eastern Congo who fled fighting between a new rebel group and government forces backed by U.N. peacekeepers," according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (Muhumuza, 8/3).

6 Aug 2012

Partners in health reports on efforts to curb Haiti's cholera epidemic using oral vaccinations

"In April, Partners In Health [PIH] responded to Haiti's cholera epidemic by providing oral vaccinations to 45,000 people living in the country's Artibonite region -- specifically, to two rice-farming communities hit hard by cholera," Louise Ivers, senior health and policy adviser at PIH, reports in an article on the organization's webpage.

3 Aug 2012

Changing behavior in Haiti to prevent cholera poses challenges

Noting that several organizations recently have closed or consolidated their cholera treatment centers in Haiti, Jason Hayes with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting writes in an opinion analysis in the Huffington Post Blog, "In order to stop cholera, a water-borne illness, you need to change the ways people interact with water. It is no easy task."

2 Aug 2012

U.S. legislators appeal to U.N. to take greater role in addressing Haiti's cholera outbreak

"U.S. legislators are appealing to the United Nations to take a greater role in addressing Haiti's cholera outbreak, now in its third year and which has left thousands dead," Inter Press Service reports. "In a letter addressed to U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice, 104 U.S. members of Congress urged Rice to help step up U.N. concern over the outbreak," the news service writes.

24 Jul 2012

DPC in charge of preparing Haiti for natural disasters becomes a success story

Not all stories associated with natural disasters in Haiti are filled with tales of gloom and doom. Barely two years following the catastrophic earthquake that leveled portions of Port-au-Prince, the Civil Protection Agency (DPC) in charge of preparing Haiti for natural disasters, has become a success story that is now being examined as a role model for other disaster prone nations.

21 Jul 2012

Study explores role of L. reuteri against foodborne infection

While many bacteria exist as aggressive pathogens, causing diseases ranging from tuberculosis and cholera, to plague, diphtheria and toxic shock syndrome, others play a less malevolent role and some are critical for human health.

21 Jul 2012

Targets reached in Haiti's pilot cholera vaccination program, NPR reports

NPR's "Shots" blog reports on the results of a "high-visibility pilot project to vaccinate 100,000 Haitians against cholera." The blog writes, "Almost 90 percent of the target population -- half in Port-au-Prince and the other half in a remote rural area -- got fully protected against cholera, meaning they got two doses of the oral vaccine."

19 Jul 2012

Cuba cholera outbreak sickens more than 150 people; Government says number of cases dropping

"Cuba's health ministry on Saturday reported 158 cases of cholera, nearly three times as many as previously disclosed, but said there were no new deaths and the outbreak appears to have been contained and on the wane," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.

17 Jul 2012

Sahel region experiencing increase in cholera cases, UNICEF, WHO warn

UNICEF and the WHO "are warning of an alarming upsurge in cholera across West Africa's Sahel region, the area at the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert running from Mauritania to Chad," VOA News reports.

12 Jul 2012

UNN, UM establish firm foundation for mutual collaborations

A delegation from the University of Nigeria (UNN) has just completed a week in key laboratories and boardrooms at the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus exploring educational exchanges between the two universities.

8 Jul 2012

Cholera outbreak in Cuba kills three, sickens more than 50 people

A cholera outbreak in eastern Cuba has killed three elderly people and sickened more than 50 others, "130 years after the last known case of the disease was reported on the island," Agence France-Presse reports.

6 Jul 2012

Scientists identify novel mechanism behind bacterial pathogenesis

Scientists have identified a new mechanism of bacterial pathogenesis. The results of the research project, partly funded by the Academy of Finland, have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

27 Jun 2012

New research suggests local strains of cholera may have contributed to Haiti's epidemic

NPR's "Shots" blog reports on efforts to determine the source of Haiti's cholera epidemic, writing, "Most researchers currently believe that United Nations peacekeeping soldiers introduced cholera to Haiti in October of 2010," but researchers from the University of Maryland report they "have found two very different cholera strains in some of the first Haitians to be struck by the disease."

21 Jun 2012