Nicholas Diem
Biology
20 October 2014

Cholera First off, cholera is an infection of the small intestine cause by bacterium vibrio cholera. There are two main symptoms of this disease which include diarrhea and vomiting, which lead to dehydration and skin color change to grayish blue; blue death is the nickname given to this disease because of the change in skin color. There are very obvious signs and symptoms that may leave someone to believe they have cholera, although getting cholera is not easy, it is still a scary and fatal disease; one must consume up to 100 million bacteria to be effected and potentially get cholera. Constant diarrhea and vomiting of clear fluid is the major symptom of cholera, and this leads to dehydration and electrolyte loss. Cholera can most definitely be fatal, sever cholera is known to kill about a half of the infected individuals, and if someone is not treated they can produce gallons of waste per day. Cholera is transmitted by either contaminated food or contaminated water. The leading cause of food would be seafood because of the bacteria that is inside of it. Most developing countries will be more susceptible to getting cholera from contaminated water because the lack of pure water available. Shellfish and plankton are two organisms that are known to carry cholera because they are infected with sewage. Popular ways of getting cholera can be from other

infected people’s diarrhea getting into water ways and contaminating organisms that people consume. The people who are at risk are mainly people in developing countries that have a poor supply of fresh water and are forced to drink contaminated water. There are many treatments for cholera such as ORT, which stands for Oral Rehydration Therapy. This is pretty self-explanatory and it’s basically a fluid replacement to help the dehydration by mixing salt and sugar into the water while continuing