Spain, Country’s Health Ministry clarified a report of Spain’s first local cholera case since 1979 on Wednesday, saying that the strain found was that of the vibrio cholerae bacteria, which does not cause cholera.
On Wednesday, Madrid Public Health Director Elena Andradas announced that a cholera case was discovered in the Spanish capital last week.
A kid who drank polluted water on a farm in Toledo was hospitalised, but her sickness should have been diagnosed as vibrio gastroenteritis rather than cholera, according to the Health Ministry.
The farm had been sealed off by local officials.
Only a subset of Vibrio cholerae strains are harmful to humans and produce the potentially fatal disease cholera.
Though the bacteria found in Spain belonged to the 01 serogroup, which can cause cholera epidemics, the ministry stated that this strain lacked the toxin that causes infection.
Researchers estimate that cholera infects between 1.3 million and 4 million individuals each year, killing between 21,000 and 143,000 people worldwide.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, there are substantial current outbreaks in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.
The last time cholera was locally transmitted in Spain was in the North African enclave of Melilla in July 1979. According to a research article, it then spread across the country, impacting 264 people.
