Mass Cholera Vaccination Could Save Thousands of Lives

One of the most efficient methods of preventing the spread of highly-contagious and deadly diseases through the Third World and beyond is to vaccination a large portion of the population in mass.

The findings are detailed in two research paper, that appear in the January issue of the esteemed open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The work arrived at this conclusion after analyzing how a number of epidemics spread through several Asian nations.

While analyzing past outbreaks in Zimbabwe, Zanzibar and India, researchers learned that hundreds to thousands of cholera-induced deaths could have been avoided if a large portion of the general population would have been vaccinated when the first cases were reported.

Cholera, a diarrheal disease, kills by dehydration, so giving water to those who are sick is very important. In terms of addressing the condition proper, this can be down with oral vaccines.

However, over the past few years, the Vibrio cholerae bacterium which causes the condition has evolved, causing the infection and outbreak patterns of the disease to change.

Whereas before the outbreak the disease moved too fast from one location to another – rendering efforts to protect against it useless – it now tends to stay in the same place for longer.

This means that mass vaccinations are beginning to become a viable solution for preventing large numbers of people from getting killed by the bacterial agent, Science News reports.

“Historically, the cholera vaccine has been secondary,” explains Harvard University immunologist Edward Ryan, who is also based at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston.

The cholera expert, who was not a part of the new investigations, says that the focus of relief efforts can now be shifted a bit, from re-hydrating sick people to providing vaccines for the population living in the affected area.

“The changing features of the pandemic – and data like we’re seeing from these two studies – would suggest it may be time to revisit what role cholera vaccine could play in an outbreak,” explains Ryan.

The bottom line of the new studies is that protecting against outbreaks of such disease is possible. The work found that vaccination helped people in itself, not taking into account other factors that limit the spread of infection.

These include the herd effect, which is when people don't get infected because others around them are vaccinated, and therefore do not carry the bacteria.