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Prevention of cholera

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The NICD says there's no cholera outbreak in the City of Tshwane.
The NICD says there's no cholera outbreak in the City of Tshwane.
Although there is a vaccine for cholera, it offers only limited immunity and the jury is out about whether or not travellers should be vaccinated.

While some doctors recommend it, others doubt its efficacy and suggest that travellers should rather take precautions with food and drinking water.

During cholera epidemics, vaccination is not effective and the best way to tackle the disease is to educate the community on how to make water and food safe and sanitation, or to provide clean water.

A new, oral cholera vaccine has also been developed that is more reliable than the injected form, but it's expensive and doesn't offer complete protection against the disease.

Regretfully, none of the current vaccines have the necessary combination of high efficacy, long duration of protection, simplicity of administration and low cost to make mass vaccination a possibility in cholera areas.


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