What is Cholera?

Cholera is a bacterial infection of the small intestine that causes sudden, profuse watery diarrhea - and it can dehydrate an adult to danger within hours. It is also one of medicine's most treatable emergencies: with fluids given promptly and correctly, almost everyone survives.

The germ and its route

Cholera is caused by Vibrio cholerae, a bacterium swallowed with contaminated water or food. Where drinking water and sewage mix - floods, broken pipelines, crowded camps, unsafe wells - cholera follows. The bacteria release a toxin that makes the intestinal lining pour out water and salts: the body loses fluid faster than it can be replaced.

The signature picture

Sudden onset of large-volume, painless, watery stools - pale and flecked, classically called "rice-water" stools - with vomiting and little or no fever. The danger is not the infection itself but the speed of dehydration: sunken eyes, dry mouth, poor skin pinch, scant urine, weakness, then lethargy and collapse if fluids do not keep pace.

The good news that saves lives

Cholera kills by dehydration - and dehydration is fixable. Oral rehydration solution (ORS), started early and taken continuously, treats most cases completely at home or at a simple facility. Severe cases need rapid intravenous fluids, and even they recover fully with timely care. Fatality in treated cholera is under 1%; untreated, it can reach half.

The emergency rule

Profuse watery diarrhea with signs of dehydration - especially in an outbreak or after floods - means fluids now and a hospital now. Do not wait to "see how it goes".

One-line summary

Cholera is water-borne Vibrio infection causing rapid massive fluid loss - deadly through dehydration, almost fully curable through prompt ORS and IV fluids.