Treatment via hydration and over-the-counter hydration solutions can be started without or before confirmation by laboratory analysis, especially where cholera is a common problem.Stool and swab samples collected in the acute stage of the disease, before antibiotics have been administered, are the most useful specimens for laboratory diagnosis. If an epidemic of cholera is suspected, the most common causative agent is V. cholerae O1. If V. cholerae serogroup O1 is not isolated, the laboratory should test for V. cholerae O139. However, if neither of these organisms is isolated, it is necessary to send stool specimens to a reference laboratory.Infection with V. cholerae O139 should be reported and handled in the same manner as that caused by V. cholerae O1. The associated diarrheal illness should be referred to as cholera and must be reported in the United States. Prevention
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends focusing on prevention, preparedness, and response to combat the spread of cholera. They also stress the importance of an effective surveillance system. Governments can play a role in all of these areas. Water, sanitation and hygiene
Although cholera may be life-threatening, prevention of the disease is normally straightforward if proper sanitation practices are followed. In developed countries, due to their nearly universal advanced water treatment and sanitation practices, cholera is rare. For example, the last major outbreak of cholera in the United States occurred in 1910–1911. Cholera is mainly a risk in developing countries in those areas where access to WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) infrastructure is still inadequate.
Contrary to the actual facts of how violently cholera kills, Mann has his protagonist die peacefully on a beach in a deck chair. Luchino Viscontis 1971 film version also hid from the audience the actual course of the disease. Manns novella was also made into an opera by Benjamin Britten in 1973, his last one, and into a ballet by John Neumeier for his Hamburg Ballet company, in December 2003. *
In Gabriel Garcia Márquezs 1985 novel Love in the Time of Cholera, cholera is "a looming background presence rather than a central figure requiring vile description." The novel was adapted in 2007 for the film of the same name directed by Mike Newell. Country examples
Zambia
In Zambia, widespread cholera outbreaks have occurred since 1977, most commonly in the capital city of Lusaka. In 2017, an outbreak of cholera was declared in Zambia after laboratory confirmation of Vibrio cholerae O1, biotype El Tor, serotype Ogawa, from stool samples from two patients with acute watery diarrhea. There was a rapid increase in the number of cases from several hundred cases in early December 2017 to approximately 2,000 by early January 2018.