An outbreak of gastroenteritis due to Vibrio cholerae 0139 in Pondicherry, South India.

Here we report an outbreak of gastroenteritis due to V. cholerae 0139 in Pondicherry, South India. The outbreak lasted for 10 weeks beginning from middle of October, 1992. During the period, a total of 237 cases were admitted to JIPMER (tertiary care hospital) with gastroenteritis, of whom 100 were females. The mean age of all the patients was 39.20 ± 1.06 (SEM) years (range 0.02 to 76 years). All cases recovered following therapy, except for a 60 year old female patient, who died of hypovolemic shock.