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Bulletin of the World Health Organization logoLink to Bulletin of the World Health Organization
. 1970;43(3):389–399.

Serological studies on cholera patients and their household contacts in Calcutta in 1968*

Joint ICMR-GWB-WHO Cholera Study Group
PMCID: PMC2427674  PMID: 5312993

Abstract

Vibriocidal and agglutination tests have been performed, using a microtechnique, on 170 pairs of sera obtained, at intervals of 13-26 days, from bacteriologically proven cholera patients and their contacts, carriers and vibrio-negative contacts. Of the carriers, 44%-46% of those with low initial vibriocidin titres (≤ 1:80) and 28%-37% of those having high initial titres (≤ 1:160) showed a 4-fold or greater rise in vibriocidal titres. Carriers and negative contacts exhibited almost similar pictures. With an increase in the number of carriers per household, a larger number of negative contacts developed significant titres in their second samples. In general, initial titres increased with age, but were highest in the 10-25-years age-group: however, 30% of children below 10 years of age had titres ≥ 1:640. The results indicated that individuals with high titres might become carriers but may not suffer from overt cholera.

The investigation also showed that retrospective diagnosis of cholera infection in a highly endemic area should not depend on serology alone.

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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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