Shah Harsh Dilipkumar, Desai Bharat, Jadav Pranay, Shah Nitesh, Kadikar Rishi, Singh Asmita Jyoti
National Coordinator, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.
Community Medicine Department, Zydus Medical College And Hospital, Dahod, Gujarat, India.
J Family Med Prim Care. 2022 Oct;11(10):6061-6066. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_133_22. Epub 2022 Oct 31.
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease caused by consuming contaminated food and water. The burden may remain underreported due to several issues like the low capacity of epidemiological surveillance systems, laboratory testing facilities, and socioeconomic disparities in urban slums. The disease has very short incubation period resulted in quick clustering of cases.
A thorough outbreak investigation was carried out with the objective of strengthening the surveillance activity, finding out the sources of infection, and recommending necessary actions to control the outbreak immediately.
An unusual increase in cases of diarrhoea was reported in slum area of Kalol town during the first week of July 2021. The stool samples were taken and investigated for confirmation and declaration of the outbreak by the Rapid Response Team. Time, place, and person distribution were carried out to generate a hypothesis and provide an immediate public health response to contain the outbreak. This study was conducted during the emergency public health response, no ethical approval was sought before the survey.
The cholera outbreak was confirmed when three out of five stool samples were positive for the bacterium O1 biotype El Tor serotype Ogawa. The overall attack rate and case fatality rate were 3.6% and 1.1%, respectively. The leakages caused the mixing of drainage water with the drinking water supply, which could be the possible cause of outbreak.
The early identification and management of the cases, source reduction, health education on water chlorination, and hand hygiene were initiated based on our recommendations, which controlled the present outbreak.
霍乱是一种因食用受污染的食物和水而引起的急性腹泻疾病。由于诸如流行病学监测系统能力低下、实验室检测设施以及城市贫民窟中的社会经济差距等若干问题，霍乱负担可能仍未得到充分报告。该疾病的潜伏期很短，导致病例迅速聚集。
开展了一次全面的疫情调查，目的是加强监测活动，找出感染源，并立即建议采取必要行动控制疫情。
2021年7月的第一周，卡洛尔镇贫民窟地区报告腹泻病例异常增加。快速反应小组采集了粪便样本并进行调查，以确认和宣布疫情。进行了时间、地点和人员分布分析，以形成假设并立即采取公共卫生应对措施来控制疫情。本研究是在紧急公共卫生应对期间进行的，调查前未寻求伦理批准。
当五份粪便样本中有三份检测出O1生物型埃尔托血清型小川霍乱弧菌呈阳性时，霍乱疫情得到确认。总体发病率和病死率分别为3.6%和1.1%。排水管道泄漏导致排水与饮用水供应混合，这可能是疫情爆发的原因。
根据我们的建议，对病例进行了早期识别和管理，减少了传染源，开展了关于水氯化和手部卫生的健康教育，从而控制了当前的疫情。
