ABSTRACT
The 1990s have experienced overall increases in incidence of diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, dengue fever, cholera, dysentery and HIV/AIDS. This period has also been accompanied by resurgence, emergence, or recognition of new pathogens, including strains of cholera, bacillary dysentery and Escherichia coli diarrhoea, with particularly severe consequences for much of the 'developing world'. Variation in exposure to contaminated environments, often degraded through human poverty, forms the theme of many existing commentaries on the spatial distribution of cholera and dysentery, though opinion as to the most significant cause is varied. New techniques of isolation which use fluorescent antibody or gene probes help overcome the problem of evasion, meaning that an entirely new appreciation of the space-time distribution of Vibrio cholerae and incidence of cholera is possible. Global changes in distribution may also be partly dependent on Vibrio cholerae being able to survive in coastal waters with other salt water organisms, such as algae and plankton.
