How rising sea temperatures fuel cholera outbreaks

Food vendors go on with their business near raw flowing sewer along Kirinyaga Road (Photo: Courtesy)

Last week cholera killed at least three people in Kisumu with over 30 being treated after contracting the deadly disease. Before Kisumu, dozens of Nairobians including two Cabinet Secretaries had similarly contracted the disease.

The obvious fact that the disease is no respecter of status was the key focus of most news reports. What should however not be lost in all these is that there is more to cholera than meets the eye. Unless we dig deeper and unearth the root causes of this disease, we remain sitting ducks.

Incidentally, this year marks the two hundredth year since cholera's first occurrence in India's Ganges delta back in 1817. For two hundred years, the disease had matched on in different corners of the globe. It has emerged in recent years that Vibrio Cholerae, the bacteria that causes cholera isn't just a product of bad sanitation.

About 30 years ago, Prof Rita Colwell, an American microbiologist from the University of Maryland proved that the cholera-causing bacteria remains lethal even in its dormant state. This is similar to a poisonous viper that lurks under one's bed, asleep but just as deadly. Sooner or later, it will pounce.

This makes the cholera bacteria even more deadly since it can give the illusion of being wiped out only to emerge later.

Prof Colwell together with fellow researchers additionally discovered that rising sea temperatures and weather changes contributed to the flourishing of the cholera bacteria in water. This conclusion was proved by a World Health Organisation study's inference that warming trends are indeed affecting human infectious diseases.

Mitigating the effects

These studies point to the importance of research in combating deadly diseases like cholera. Some of them, like the one Prof Coldwell was involved in together with the US National Institute of Health, took fifteen years to be concluded. It takes time to conduct research of such high social and medical magnitude. But once concluded, insightful research findings that can inform policy shift are well worth the effort.

Even as we take cholera remedial action, we need to drastically step up our own research particularly as relates the linkages between cholera and climate change. Such research is not a sprint but a marathon, so the scientific community and government must urgently get together and generously invest into research.

There is no question that Nairobi, Kisumu and all urban centres in this country need to protect water infrastructure with the vigilance of an army guarding its base. But similar vigilance should be employed in mitigating the effects of a changing climate that is evidently fueling cholera.

Such vigilance should compel us to consistently demand action from the developed nations, particularly the US, in tackling the ever-growing effects of climate change. That will ultimately be more beneficial than simply closing down open-air eating joints because an epidemic of cholera in our nation poses a high risk Internationally. Think green, Act green!

— The writer is the founder and chairperson, Green Africa Foundation. www.isaackalua.com