Getting Serious about Cholera

Abstract

Deaths from cholera are again making news, this time in Angola. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Angola had reported 46,758 cases of cholera, including 1893 deaths, as of June 19, 2006.¹ The outbreak has affected 14 of 18 provinces, but nearly half the cases were reported in the coastal capital, Luanda, and another 17 percent in Benguela provinces. The overall case fatality rate is about 4 percent, although in some provinces, it has reached 30 percent. This outbreak represents another in a series of cholera epidemics in this country,² which is among the poorest in the world and . . .