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Bulletin of the World Health Organization logoLink to Bulletin of the World Health Organization
. 1980;58(5):731–740.

Microbiological surveillance of intra-neighbourhood El Tor cholera transmission in rural Bangaldesh*

W M Spira, M U Khan, Y A Saeed, M A Sattar
PMCID: PMC2395982  PMID: 6975182

Abstract

The apparent failure of handpump tubewells to reduce the incidence of cholera among users in the flooded rural area of Bangladesh has stimulated interest in defining precisely the means of Vibrio cholerae transmission during localized outbreaks. Cholera-infected neighbourhoods were placed under intensive microbiological surveillance to pinpoint contaminated sources and subsequent infections. The results show that cholera transmission was via contaminated surface water, particularly water taken into households for cooking or drinking. Infections resulted from a daily dose not exceeding 105 organisms and the frequency of exposure appeared to be a major determinant of the infection rate. The importance of these data in environmental interventions and particularly in the provision of tubewells is discussed.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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