I have an assessment due for school soon and its based on the disease Cholera!! I go onto Wikipedia and MedicineNet.com but everything is so hard to absorb and understand.

I need the history, the cause and the name of the vaccine. just in an easier way to understand please help me.

Cholera was first seen to infect humans in 1817 in the Ganges delta of India. There is a pathogenic and non-pathogenic strain of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. The pathogenic one is caused due to the presence of a set of genes that encode the cholera toxin and is the one that causes the disease.

Filippo Pacini and Robert Koch are credited with determining the bacteria that causes Cholera. (Vibrio cholera)

Vibrio cholera can survive temperatures of up to 117°C (275°F) and thrives in salty water or water contaminated with organic matter (i.e. sewage) for up to six weeks. The organism cannot survive in pure or chlorinated water.

Cholera is a disease of the gastrointestinal system. Nausea, vomiting, profuse watery diarrhea, rapid loss of body fluids, electrolyte imbalance, toxemia, and collapse are the result. The hands show wrinkled skin, because the body has lost so much water that it cannot maintain cell turgor and the skin collapses.

Oral rehydration salts are the most effective treatment. Also used are IV drips of Ringer Lactate or normal saline solutions. Treatment with tetracycline (500 mg every 6 hours for 3 days) increases the effectiveness of rehydration by killing the microorganism and hence lowering the volume and duration of the diarrhea. Ciprofloxacin can also be used 500 mg every 12 hours for 3 days or erythromycin at 500 mg every 6 hours for 3 days is also effective.

(This is very elementary but I hope it will help. Good luck!) I am a retired college biology instructor.