ABSTRACT
A direct correlation exists between the availability of safe drinking water and childhood mortality. When cooking utensils are washed, a child takes water to drink, clothes are laundered, and cattle are walked and watered and washed, all in the same area of a body of water, transmission of infectious disease is nearly inevitable. Historically, cholera is a disease that can strike very suddenly, within 24 to 48 hours, and victims may die when epidemics are severe. Cholera, being a diarrheal disease, is a severe dehydrating illness with profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. The current global epidemics of cholera are part of the seventh pandemic, which began in the 1960s. Understanding riverine and estuarine sources of the cholera vibrio is very important, especially since it is associated with plankton. The water treatment systems are effective, and the population is free of cholera; it is no longer an epidemic disease in the United States.
