Photo: © Moredun Animal Health
Ltd / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Name

Vibrio cholerae

Also known as

The Cholera, Asiatic Cholera

Description

(Not) Wanted for

causing cholera, which each year kills about 5,000 people and sickens about 140,000

Modus operandi

• sneaks into its victim via contaminated drinking water.
• If the bacterium survives its trip through the stomach, propels itself to the wall of the small intestine, starts multiplying, and produces toxic proteins that cause serious diarrhoea

If not treated, dehydration caused by the diarrhoea can kill people, sometimes in as little as two to three hours (more commonly one to several days) after the onset of symptoms.

Preferred hideouts

• the human small intestine
• brackish water

Preferred means of travel

• at first, human faeces, then most often water
• sometimes dirty hands and food.

Area of operation

• prefers communities without adequate water-treatment and sewage-disposal systems
• last major outbreak occurred in parts of South America, 1991 - 1994.

Learn about other pathogens on the Most (Not) Wanted list...

Escherichia coli
Salmonella typhi
Campylobacter jejuni
Giardia lamblia