Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Remote satellite image predicts cholera outbreaks

Science Daily: Scientists in the USA have established a way to predict outbreaks of cholera, making it easier to control. This finding could provide a model to predict and potentially control outbreaks of other important infectious diseases. Cholera is a serious, ancient water-borne infectious disease, which is an unpredictable and severe problem for developing countries.

The bacterium that causes cholera, Vibrio cholerae, has a known association with a crustacean (called a copepod) which lives on zooplankton, a type of plankton. Cholera outbreaks have been linked with environmental factors, including sea surface temperature, ocean height, and biomass (this is estimated by measuring chlorophyll produced by plankton).

Professor Rita R. Colwell and her team at the University of Maryland, College Park, have used remote satellite imaging to track this climatologically important information and the data collected now can be used to predict outbreaks of cholera before they occur….

Scanning electron microscope image of Vibrio cholerae bacteria, which infect the digestive system. Wikimedia Commons, via T.J. Kirn, M.J. Lafferty, C.M.P Sandoe and R.K. Taylor, 2000, "Delineation of pilin domains required for bacterial association into microcolonies and intestinal colonization", Molecular Microbiology, Vol. 35(4):896-910

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