People all over the world are dying from cholera - in 2008!  What is cholera?  It’s a bacterium known as Vibrio cholerae (thus "cholera").  It can cause severe diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps.  People die because their bodies lose too much fluid, which leads to dehydration and shock.  Without quick treatment, people too often die within hours of becoming infected.

People get cholera by drinking water or by eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium.  In an epidemic, the source of contamination is usually from the poop of those already infected.  

As you read this post, flooding sewage is causing outbreaks of cholera in many areas of the world.  In the capital of Ethiopia in Northern Africa sewage is accumulating from below Addis Ababa’s skyscrapers - then heading downstream.  Because of flooding, the Kabena river is now full of the city’s human waste (in all its forms), and the stench of it hits the senses like nothing one can describe.  The smell is so all permeating it causes rhinitis (allergy of the nose), sinusitis (allergy of the sinus) and an even a more serious condition called bronchial asthma.

A Sickening Site, A Sickening Situation

In addition to cholera, typhus and many other kinds of parasites - all of which can cause dysentery - are showing up in lab tests.  This is absolute proof that no effective sanitation exists in the entire area. The Ethiopian government - to their credit - will have some 30,000 health workers in the field in 2009 to promote personal hygiene as part of a campaign by the government health department.  The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation.  This has prompted some in the Kechene area to embark on a plan to provide quality drinking water and sanitation facilities.  We do not know what kind of 'facilities' they mean by the phrase “sanitation facilities.”  Often this means merely digging latrines, which do not prevent cholera outbreaks.  So we’ll wait and see what sanitation solutions they'll employ to prevent another outbreak of cholera.  Meanwhile, millions of people continue to suffer and die - many of them children and the elderly with weakened immune systems.

How long will the current epidemic last?

There is absolutely no way to predict how long a cholera epidemic will last.  The last major cholera epidemic in Africa has gone on now for over 30 years.  Soon, from this site, we'll be announcing our own global disaster sanitation solution, along with specific details about how to quickly implement emergency sanitation to disaster victims - within HOURS of an outbreak - whether of cholera or some natural disaster.

In my next post, I’ll report on what governments should and can do cost-effectively to prevent cholera outbreaks, name several famous people who died of cholera, and provide some history on the disease that you might find surprising. 

Please write a comment or send me an email if you found this post interesting.  And thanks for your time.