Recent advances in cholera research: memorandum from a WHO meeting

Vibrio cholerae O1 is an important cause of diarrhoeal disease in large parts of Asia and Africa. The seventh pandemic of cholera is still continuing (92 countries have so far been affected), and other organisms related to V. cholerae O1 are being reported increasingly frequently as the cause of diarrhoeal outbreaks as well as endemic diarrhoea.Recent research has considerably increased our understanding of how cholera is transmitted, the mechanisms by which V. cholera O1 produces disease, and the functioning of the local intestinal immune response by which individuals can be protected from infection. One result of these advances has been the development of experimental cholera vaccines, derived from non-living and attenuated live strains, which promise to become a new tool for the control of cholera. These matters, which were reviewed by the WHO Scientific Working Group on Bacterial Enteric Infections at a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in September 1984, are described together with recommendations for future research.