red flag. satellite images of warmer water (red) may indicate when cholera epidemics are likely to strike.
SEATTLE - Between epidemics, cholera lies in coastal waters and rivers. Although this means that it is impossible to eradicate the disease, scientists now think they may be able to predict cholera outbreaks. A new study shows that climate change, such as hot water, can provide an early warning.
Cholera reappeared in Latin America in 1991, first in Peru, after the break of over a century. One of the places that the bacterium Vibrio cholerae cache is tiny crustaceans called copepods. These creatures can contaminate the water supply by moving to the estuaries and rivers. When drinking water is not filtered properly, they can spread cholera bacteria directly to humans
The authors of the new report -. Including Ana Gil microbiologists of the Institute of Nutrition Survey in Lima and Valerie Louis Marine Biotechnology Center in Baltimore - investigated the connection between cholera, copepods, and climate. Each month, between October 1997 and June 00, they mapped the distribution of V. cholerae in seawater and zooplankton (copepods), including four sites off the coast of Peru and many environmental factors also measured. The results, presented here at the annual meeting of the AAAS, February 14, showed that when the surface of the heated sea off the coast of Peru in 1997-98, during El Niño, there was an increase marked the cholera infection rates in Lima and nearby cities. By culturing the bacteria from plankton, the team also confirmed that some copepod species act as a reservoir for the disease between relapses.
The strong correlation between climate, copepods, and cholera suggests that satellite surveillance of the surface temperature and phytoplankton Sea (eaten by zooplankton such as copepods) may allow predictions of outbreaks disease, says lead investigator and microbiologist Rita Colwell of the University of Maryland, College Park. The team is now developing computer models that can predict epidemics in Latin America and Bangladesh, said Colwell. Results will be published in an upcoming issue of Environmental Microbiology .
"Linking environmental conditions for disease cycles is a powerful change in approach, especially as marine invertebrates are sensitive sensors such climate constraints," says the student of marine biology graduate James Cervino the University of South Carolina, Columbia. "It is not what we do as a research community, but it is what we should do," he said.
Related Sites
Climate change and infectious diseases
NSF publication on the work of cholera
of Valérie Louis Web site, with an animation of El Niño from satellite data
information on cholera CDC
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