Global Pulse Blog

With heavy flooding covering much of the country and leaving millions of people homeless in Pakistan, concerns over the potential for a major outbreak of cholera are growing. With continuing rains throughout the region, Dr. Michael Merson, the founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute believes that ”Basically there is no question” there’s a major risk of an outbreak. With a lack of adequate aid to the area to ensure a consistent, clean water supply, the risk of this diarrheal illness is immense. While the flood has already killed over 1,500 people thus far, even more are at risk from a potential cholera outbreak with 3.5 million people in Pakistan lacking access to clean water. In the past year, cholera epidemics in Zimbabwe killed over 4,000 people with over 350 killed by the disease in Nigeria over the last three months, demonstrating the deadliness of this disease. Without adequate rehydration therapy, victims can die within a day or two from overwhelming dehydration secondary to extreme diarrhea with up to a liter of stool output every hour. But with adequate rehydration therapy to replace fluids and restore electrolytes, death rates can be lowered to less than one percent.