Colwell and colleagues assertion that the role of non-O1 strains in

Colwell and colleagues assertion that the role of non-O1 strains in the epidemic cannot be dismissed (5) is worthy of rebuttal because such statements obscure the true origin of the 2010 Haitian cholera epidemic. Genetic analysis of the causative O1 strain and solid epidemiologic investigations of the outbreak clearly indicate that human activity brought toxigenic O1 to Haiti (1C4). Research efforts should focus on learning more about how cholera is spread by buy 69884-00-0 humans and how we might prevent that with appropriate interventions that include vaccination, antibiotics, and other public health strategies during times of crisis. Footnotes The authors declare no conflict of interest.. that lack the genes for cholera toxin buy 69884-00-0 and other important virulence factors. The authors concluded that the Haitian O1 strains they characterized were clonal, resembling epidemic isolates from South Asia and Africa, but claim that non-O1 also had a role, because they cultured only nontoxigenic non-O1 from 21% of clinical samples from diarrhea patients. However, the methods used to culture O1 are notoriously unreliable, particularly under makeshift conditions. Furthermore, because the cholera case definition is not articulated, there is a strong possibility that some samples were not cholera/outbreak-associated. Notably, nontoxigenic non-O1 can be diarrheagenic, Rabbit Polyclonal to MAEA as can the non-species that Colwell and colleagues (5) isolated from 31% of putative cholera cases tested, but neither causes cholera, a diarrheal disease that can be reproduced by oral ingestion of purified cholera toxin. Furthermore, in regard to the claim that non-O1 serve as a reservoir for genomic and pathogenicity islands, we cannot identify any genomic regions or sequence variants in the Haitian toxigenic O1 isolates that are present in Colwell and colleagues non-O1 isolates buy 69884-00-0 but absent from Nepalese isolates. The sequences that are claimed to enable distinction between Haitian O1 and other variant El Tor strains (e.g., in CTX?, and Nepalese O1 contributed any genetic material to the toxigenic Haitian O1 outbreak strain. Colwell and colleagues assertion that the role of non-O1 strains in the epidemic cannot be dismissed (5) is worthy of rebuttal because such statements obscure the true origin of the 2010 Haitian cholera epidemic. Genetic analysis of the causative O1 strain and solid epidemiologic investigations of the outbreak clearly indicate that human activity brought toxigenic O1 to Haiti (1C4). Research efforts should focus on learning more about how cholera is spread by humans and how we might prevent that with appropriate interventions that include vaccination, antibiotics, and other public health strategies during times of crisis. Footnotes The authors declare no conflict of interest..