AN OVERVIEW OF THE COMPLEX AND BAFFLING EPIDEMIOLOGY OF CHOLERA

Abstract

Epidemiology as a science has come a long way from the beginning of organized humanity to the present day. Systematic counting and global disease data recording may take us back to antiquity.

With different forms and names, it has evolved to achieve the interrelation of environmental, socio-cultural and political factors due to the need for state responses to infectious disease outbreaks such as cholera.

Cholera has inspired scientific and romantic literature, from its theoretical origin in the Ganges River in India to the seventh and current epidemic. The latest molecular analysis techniques allow us to trace the vibrio from its reservoirs and compare them to each other until their phylogenetic relationships are established. We know more and more serotypes and their behaviour. The occurrence of cholera outbreaks can also be linked to environmental phenomena such as El Niño (and it becomes a possible tool for predicting future outbreaks.) Even so, cholera continues to be of significant complexity because it unmasks social and economic concerns such as poverty since its appearance is linked to a lack of prevention and hygiene habits. This essay attempts to make a brief epidemiological history and comment on the current state of knowledge of Vibrio cholerae eco-epidemiological dynamics, a review of what happened in Argentina at the end of the 20th century in the last cholera epidemic in South America. It is a simple synthesis of what happens and shapes us in this new century of possible pandemics.