A Probiotic Vaccine Aims to Stop Cholera Epidemics Fast
by Richard Conniff/Scientific American
The most terrifying things about cholera is its lethal speed. A victim can consume contaminated food or water, come down with diarrhea a day later and, if untreated, be dead a day after that—having inadvertently spread the microorganism to friends, neighbors and family members in the meantime. Hence cholera’s reputation for tearing explosively through populations, mostly recently in Haiti beginning in 2010 and Yemen in 2016.
Two major challenges—one diagnostic, the other preventive—make it difficult to stop cholera epidemics: A simple field test can distinguish cholera from other forms of diarrhea, but only after symptoms have already appeared. And although existing vaccines can prevent the disease, they require two or three weeks to elicit protective immunity. Neither diagnosis nor vaccination is fast enough for public health workers racing to stop the first few cases of cholera from breaking out into an epidemic.
Two new studies…
View original post 1,054 more words
Freed by ASD 