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Transmission

Authoring team

Transmission

Transmission of cholera has been linked to faeces-contaminated drinking water drawn from shallow unprotected wells and also bottled water with ice

  • seafood and other foods have frequently been a source of cholera - especially undercooked or raw shellfish
  • person-to-person spread may occur through the faecal-oral route (1)

In experimental human infections the infectious dose of V cholerae is thought to be 105-108. This figure can be as low as 103 when the patient has concurrent achlorhydria (2)

Patients without any symptoms generally shed the organism for only a few days while symptomatic patients may shed the organism for between 2 days and 2 weeks (rarely longer)

Reference:

  1. UK Health Security Agency. Cholera: the green book, chapter 14. Cholera immunisation information for public health professionals. Published March 2013, last updated August 2024
  2. Kanungo S, Azman AS, Ramamurthy T, et al. Cholera. Lancet. 2022 Apr 9;399(10333):1429-40.

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