ABSTRACT
The global epidemic of cholera – an ancient, acute bacterial enteric disease – continues to spread throughout the world, despite scientists’ efforts to control its transmission (AHRTAG 1993:1–8). For the first time in this century, cholera is gaining a foothold in the Western hemisphere. In Latin America, the number of endemic cases now rivals those in Asia and Africa. This seventh cholera pandemic, which started in Asia in 1961, spread to Africa, Europe, and Oceania, but had spared the Western hemisphere. That was, however, before January 1991 when toxigenic Vibrio cholera O1, biotype El Tor and serotype Inaba, was reported for the first time in some 100 years in South America (Lima and Guerrant 1994:1–5). Appearing almost simultaneously in several coastal Peruvian cities, the epidemic of V. cholera O1 exploded with some 426,000 probable cholera cases and over 3300 deaths reported in Peru alone.
