- It takes 12 hours to 5 days for a person to show the symptoms of cholera after consuming contaminated food or water.
- Cholera causes the body to secrete enormous amounts of water, leading to diarrhea and a rapid loss of fluids and salts.
Image: Magdaline Saya
In the last few days, the media has been awash with reports of a suspected cholera outbreak at Upper Hill School in Nairobi
Panic gripped parents at the school, who stormed the institution demanding to be allowed to take their children home.
Sixteen students had been hospitalized while 60 others were reported to have been treated and discharged.
Health officials however ruled out cholera and said it was a case of amoebiasis.
About 100 students who were complaining of stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting tested positive for the infection.
“We as the health department have also taken the samples to culture for cholera; we did rapid tests and they turned negative,” director of preventive and promotive health in Nairobi, Carol Ngunu said on Tuesday.
Amoebiasis, or amoebic dysentery, is an infection caused by a parasite that your body sheds through stool.
Amoebiasis infection is most common in tropical areas with untreated water. It spreads through drinking or eating uncooked food, such as fruit, that may have been washed in contaminated local water.
Symptoms are often quite mild and can include loose faeces, stomach pain, and stomach cramping.
People with cholera can develop severe dehydration, which can lead to kidney failure.
If left untreated, severe dehydration can lead to shock, coma, and death within hours even in previously healthy people.
It takes 12 hours to 5 days for a person to show the symptoms of cholera after consuming contaminated food or water.
Other symptoms are fishy odour to stool, vomiting, rapid heart rate, loss of skin elasticity, dry mouth, low blood pressure, thirst, and tiredness.
Doctors say there are no signs or symptoms that can unequivocally distinguish cholera from other infectious causes of severe watery diarrhoea.
However, doctors say suspicion of cholera should be raised if watery diarrhoea is accompanied by severe and rapid volume depletion.
Cholera is caused by the ingestion of food or water that’s contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.
Scientists estimate that every year, there are as many as 4 million cholera cases globally and as many as 143,000 deaths.
Young children, especially those under the age of 5, bear the brunt of the disease.
Cholera is usually spread through contaminated water.
Modern sewage and water treatment have virtually eliminated cholera in developed countries but the disease still exists in Africa and Southeast Asia.
The deadly effects of the disease are the result of a toxin the bacteria produces in the small intestine.
The toxin causes the body to secrete enormous amounts of water, leading to diarrhoea and a rapid loss of fluids and salts.
Dysentery on the other hand is an inflammation of the intestine characterised by the frequent passage of faeces with blood and mucus.