Clinical profile of acute diarrhoea cases infected with the new epidemic strain of Vibrio cholerae O139: designation of the disease as cholera.

A total of 113 patients suffering from acute watery diarrhoea caused by the novel epidemic strain of Vibrio cholerae non-O1, currently assigned to a new serogroup O139, were investigated in order to determine the clinical presentation of the new epidemic strain causing outbreaks of cholera-like infection in the Indian subcontinent. Estimations of electrolyte concentration in serum and stool were also performed in a representative number of the above cases. The clinical features and blood and stool biochemical parameters of V. cholerae serogroup O139 diarrhoeal patients were indistinguishable from those in typical cholera, except for 44.3% cases infected by O139 had abdominal cramps. In view of the above, we propose to designate the disease caused by V. cholerae O139 as cholera.