Cholera

University of Florida College of Agricultural and Life Sciences student Michelle Mu won first place in the undergraduate research poster competition at EPI Research Day 2025.

UF researchers uncovered evidence that the bacteria which cause cholera, Vibrio cholerae, have established an aquatic reservoir in Haitian waterways where they are now adapting and evolving. This marks the first time the pathogenic bacteria are known to have a reservoir outside of the Bay of Bengal, which is traditionally viewed as their home.

Nelson lab travels to Haiti to educate students at the Université d’État d’Haiti Faculté de Médicine et de Pharmacie in Port au Prince on water-borne diseases.

EPI investigator Afsar Ali led a study characterizing how the pathogen that causes cholera persists in wild, low-nutrient aquatic environments for decades.

A mathematical model of cholera transmission in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake suggests that current approaches to cholera control and elimination, which focus primarily on improving sanitation, are not likely to solve the problem. However, eradication of cholera is possible with use of oral cholera vaccine.

Working in collaboration with a mobile phone application developer as well as colleagues in the United States and Bangladesh, a UF investigator helped create and test an app that helps physicians diagnose cholera and other diarrheal diseases with greater accuracy.

Hurricane Matthew’s sweep through southern Haiti last October killed hundreds; left nearly 200,000 without homes; and flooded rivers, latrines and wells, contaminating drinking water and prompting reports of increasing cholera cases in the hardest hit areas of the nation.

On October 13th and 14th, 2016, the Minister of Health and Population of Haiti, Dr. Daphnee Benoit, convened an expert panel to consult on the control of cholera in Haiti with specific reference to the use of vaccines in the aftermath of Hurricane Mathew; the consultation resulted in the following consensus.

For more than four decades, cholera has recurred in Cameroon, affecting tens of thousands of people a year. Most recently, the West African country was one of four that had a death rate of more than five percent from the bacterial disease, exceeding the World Health Organization’s target of less than one percent. Now, researchers have discovered one reason Cameroon has struggled to control the disease. Cholera follows different, distinct outbreak patterns in different climate subzones of the large country, the researchers reported in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

A non-virulent variant of the deadly Vibrio cholerae O1 strain has likely been present in Haitian aquatic environments for several hundred years, with the potential to become virulent through gene transfer with the toxigenic strain introduced by UN peacekeepers