Patient Contracted Cholera Case Study

In order to determine how a patient contracted cholera, steps need to be taken to determine where they contracted it. Cholera is a bacteria called Vibrio cholera (Harris et al. 2008), which is found in water and food that has been contaminated with feces from an infected individual. The disease can be found in municipal water supplies, foods and drinks sold by street vendors, raw or uncooked fish or vegetables frown in water containing human feces (O’Neal et al. 2005). It is typically found in areas with poor sanitization such as Africa and south Asia, however is also occasionally reported in the U.S. When the bacteria is consumed, it releases a toxin in the intestines that produces severe diarrhea, possibly vomiting, which may lead to dehydration …show more content…
First the local hospital or health services will determine the patient’s symptoms, when they began and map what the patient ate, where they went and what they consumed at that time. Once they determined these locations and foods, they will contact those places and take water and food samples of everything the patient ate and drank. Health professionals will ask whether other cases of similar symptoms were reported and if they had, they will continue the investigation in that location. If there were no other cases and the tests came back negative for cholera, then the investigation would continue elsewhere (Podewils et al. 2010). Once the location and contaminated food or water source was determined, then more tests would be conducted to ensure that substance was the cause of the patient contracting the bacteria. Lastly, the source would be treated or thrown away, in the case of food, and the health professionals would help the location create a treatment and prevention plan for the future. This may include signs which remind individuals to wash their hands when finished with the washrooms, and washing hands before eating or handling foods (Swaddiwudhipong and Peanumlom, 2010; and Podewils et al.