In Argentina, as in other countries of Latin America, cholera has occurred in an epidemic pattern. Vibrio cholerae O1 is native to the aquatic environment, and it occurs in both culturable and viable but nonculturable (VNC) forms, the latter during interepidemic periods. This is the first report of the presence of VNC V. cholerae O1 in the estuarine and marine waters of the Rio de la Plata and ...

Vibrio cholerae is ubiquitous in aquatic environments, with environmental toxigenic V. cholerae O1 strains serving as a source for recurrent cholera epidemics and pandemic disease. However, a number of questions remain about long-term survival and evolution of V. cholerae strains within these aquatic environmental reservoirs. Through monitoring of the Haitian aquatic environment following the 2...

A total of 84 clinical Vibrio cholerae O1 isolates were collected from Khon Kaen (KK), Udon Thani (UT), Loei (LI), and Nong Khai (NK), northeastern Thailand during cholera outbreaks in 2007 and 2008. The majority of V. cholerae O1 strains carried nearly all the virulence-associated genes (ctxA, zot, and ace) except for four isolates and one isolate from UT and NK, respectively, which carried on...

Ballast water (BW) is a major transport vector of exotic aquatic species and pathogenic microorganisms. The wide-ranging spread of toxigenic Vibrio cholerae O1 from harbor areas has been frequently ascribed to discharge of contaminated BW into eutrophic coastal environments, such as during the onset of the seventh cholera pandemic in South America in the early 1990s. To determine the microbiolo...

Vibrio cholerae is a natural inhabitant of the aquatic environment. However, its toxigenic strains can cause potentially life-threatening diarrhea. A quadruplex real-time PCR assay targeting four genes, the cholera toxin gene (ctxA), the hemolysin gene (hlyA), O1-specific rfb, and O139-specific rfb, was developed for detection and differentiation of O1, O139, and non-O1, non-O139 strains and fo...