. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Nov 27.

Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Microbiol. 2009 Oct;7(10):10.1038/nrmicro2204. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro2204

Table 1.

Clinical spectrum of Vibrio cholerae infection

	Asymptomatic infection	Mild infection	Severe infection
Symptoms	None	Diarrhoea^*	Vomiting and profuse diarrhoea
Dehydration	None	None to mild	Moderate to severe (hypovolaemic shock)
Stool characteristics	Normal	Loose or watery	Rice water
Vibrios per gram of stool	Up to 10⁵	Up to 10⁸	10⁷ to 10⁹ in stool (and vomitus)
Treatment	None	Oral rehydration solution (ORS)	ORS, intravenous fluids and antibiotics^‡
Mortality	None	None	Untreated: up to 50% Treated: less than 1%

Mild symptoms of Vibrio cholerae infection are indistinguishable from those of numerous other infectious causes of gastroenteritis.

^‡

Antibiotics shorten the duration of symptoms and lessen the total fluid requirement but are not strictly necessary.