Seasonal Cholera from Multiple Small Outbreaks, Rural Bangladesh

Abstract

Clinical and environmental Vibrio cholerae organisms collected from February 2004 through April 2005 were systematically isolated from 2 rural Bangladeshi locales. Their genetic relatedness was evaluated at 5 loci that contained a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR). The observed minimal overlap in VNTR patterns between the 2 communities was consistent with sequential, small outbreaks from local sources.

Keywords

• Cholera
• variable number of tandem repeats
• epidemiology
• outbreaks
• genetic variation
• dispatch