Widespread cholera outbreaks have forced health agencies to ration vaccines, raising questions about affected countries’ public health infrastructure. The disease has already infected hundreds of thousands of people this year, The New York Times reports. As a result, the International Coordinating Group (ICG), which manages the distribution of emergency vaccines and is made up of members of the World Health Organization (WHO) and humanitarian groups such as Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, has recommended giving out just one vaccine dose per person instead of the full two-dose regimen, the WHO announced in a press release earlier this month (October 19).
Cholera is a bacterial infection typically spread through the ingestion of contaminated food or water. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main symptoms are profuse diarrhea and vomiting, resulting in severe dehydration. That dehydration leads to kidney failure, shock, and death in 3 percent of ...
