Extensive test shows cholera vaccine works
By Nathan Seppa
From Miami, Fla., at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
A reliable, long-lasting vaccine against cholera has eluded medical science. The best vaccine available during the 20th century was scrapped in the 1970s because it offered only weak protection. In the 1980s, Swedish researchers developed an oral vaccine, and trials done since then have indicated that it offers better protection than the abandoned vaccine did.
In its first massive test, the oral vaccine has proved effective in preventing the life-threatening diarrhea that cholera causes, researchers working in Mozambique report. These new data establish the vaccine’s value for public health campaigns against cholera, suggests Jacqueline L. Deen of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.