Cholera outbreak in Thailand during the past 25-year period, a summary on epidemiology.

Cholera is an old well-known bacterial diarrhea. It is a severe diarrhoeal disease transmitted via the feco-oral route and commonly associated with poor sanitation (1). Every year, more than 100,000 cholera cases and 2,000-3,000 deaths are officially reported to World Health Organization (WHO) (2). The real figures for cholera are thought to be much higher, however, due to underreporting and other limitations of surveillance systems (2). Cholera is caused by two of a gram negative bacterium, Vibrio cholera (2). Of interest, between the years of 1995 and 2001, the WHO reported 1,829 cases of cholera in developed countries, the majority of which were imported (1). Presently, many tropical countries are classifies as risk areas for cholera (3). In Thailand, cholera is a disease under surveillance. A recent study indicated that up to 65% of the Thai adults had IgG and IgM antibodies to this disease (4). There have been sporadic reports on the outbreak of this infection for years. The aim of the study concerns the epidemiology of cholera in Thailand. Here, the author performed a summarization on the previous reports on the outbreak of cholera in a 25-period, from 1982 to 2007. A literature review to find the reports on outbreak of hepatitis A in during that period in Thailand was performed. The author used the electronic search engine PubMed (www.pubmed.com) in searching for the literature. The author also reviewed the published works in all 256 local Thai journals, which are not included in the international citation index by the database Thai Index Medicus. According to this study, there are at least 11 reports of overall 860 cholera cases (435 males and 425 females; 484 children and 374 adults) (5-15) on the outbreak of cholera during 1982 and 2007 (Table I). There had been continuous re-