Vibrio cholerae O139 persists in Dhaka, Bangladesh since 1993

After a multi-country Asian outbreak of cholera due to Vibrio cholerae serogroup O139 which started in 1992, it is rarely detected from any country in Asia and has not been detected from patients in Africa.

We extracted surveillance data from the Dhaka and Matlab Hospitals of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) to review trends in isolation of Vibrio cholerae O139 in Bangladesh. Data from the Dhaka Hospital is a 2% sample of > 100,000 diarrhoeal patients treated annually. Data from the Matlab Hospital includes all diarrhoeal patients who hail from the villages included in the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Vibrio cholerae O139 was first isolated in Dhaka in 1993 and had been isolated every year since then except for a gap between 2005 and 2008. An average of thirteen isolates was detected annually from the Dhaka Hospital during the last ten years, yielding an estimated 650 cases annually at this hospital. During the last ten years, cases due to serogroup O139 represented 0.47% of all cholera cases; the others being due to serogroup O1. No cases with serogroup O139 were identified at Matlab since 2006. Clinical signs and symptoms of cholera due to serogroup O139 were similar to cases due to serogroup O1 though more of the O139 cases were not dehydrated. Most isolates of O139 remained sensitive to tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, and azithromycin, but they became resistant to erythromycin starting in 2009.

Cholera due to Vibrio cholerae serogroup O139 continues to cause typical cholera in Dhaka, Bangladesh.