The epidemiology of Vibrio cholerae in Zabol city, South-East of Iran

Cholera continues to be an important public health problem in many communities. This study was performed to determine the epidemiology of Vibrio cholerae in Zabol city, South-East of Iran. The study was conducted in the hospitals affiliated to Zabol Faculty of Medicine, with patients referred from Zabol city and its 45 neighboring rural populations. Three thousand one hundred seventy-eight patients with watery diarrhea, who were referred to this center, were investigated in a descriptive retrospective study over a 4-year period. Vibrio cholerae strains were isolated from 362 (11.39%) samples. Of these, 336 (92.8%) were found to be Vibrio cholerae O1 Ogawa strain. Nonagglutinable (NAG) vibrios accounted for 26 (7.2%) strains. Twenty-four cases lived in an urban area, 270 had been referred from rural areas, and 68 came from Afghanistan. Two hundred forty-four cases were inpatients while the remaining 118 were outpatients. Twelve (3.31%) of these patients died of the disease. Vibrio cholerae remains an important cause of acute watery diarrhea in Sistan and Baluchestan Province of Iran especially rural area.