Abstract
The Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata General Hospital, Kolkata, India witnessed a sudden increase in admissions of diarrhoea cases during the first 2 weeks of August 2015 following heavy rainfall. This prompted us to investigate the event. Cases were recruited through hospital-based surveillance along with the collection of socio-demographic characteristics and clinical profile using a structured questionnaire. Stool specimens were tested at bacteriological laboratory of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), Kolkata. Admission of 3003 diarrhoea cases, clearly indicated occurrence of outbreak in Kolkata municipal area as it was more than two standard deviation of the mean number (911; s.d. = 111) of diarrhoea admissions during the same period in previous 7 years. Out of 164 recruited cases, 25% were under-5 children. Organisms were isolated from 80 (49%) stool specimens. Vibrio cholerae O1 was isolated from 50 patients. Twenty-eight patients had this organism as the sole pathogen. Among 14 infants, five had cholera. All V. cholerae O1 isolates were resistant to nalidixic acid, followed by co-trimoxazole (96%), streptomycin (92%), but sensitive to fluroquinolones. We confirmed the occurrence of a cholera outbreak in Kolkata during August 2015 due to V. cholerae O1 infection, where infants were affected.
Highlights
Cholera is a severe form of waterborne acute dehydrating diarrhoeal disease which is well known for its epidemic and pandemic potentials [1, 2]
In 2014, 42 countries reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) a total of 190 549 cholera cases with 2231 deaths, resulting in an overall case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.17%
Apart from diarrhoea cases recruited under the surveillance, forty additional stool specimens were collected from diarrhoea cases attending the hospital during the same period for better understanding of the aetiology of this outbreak and processed using similar procedures
Summary
Cholera is a severe form of waterborne acute dehydrating diarrhoeal disease which is well known for its epidemic and pandemic potentials [1, 2]. The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), Kolkata, has been conducting diarrhoeal disease surveillance in this hospital for almost past two decades, where systematically every fifth hospitalised diarrhoea case on two selected days in each week is recruited [12]. In response to this flood situation, scientists at NICED analysed surveillance data of a subset of the diarrhoea patients admitted to ID&BG Hospital from Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. The investigation was undertaken to confirm existence of any diarrhoea disease outbreak, to recommend appropriate preventive and control measures, to identify the aetiological agents of outbreak, to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolated organism against a range of antimicrobial agents and to determine the genetic relatedness of the isolated strains during this period
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
