Article Source: GatesNotes

While all of us are focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to forget about the world’s longest-running pandemic—cholera. Over the last 200 years the deadly diarrheal disease, which thrives in areas without safe water and sanitation, has killed millions of people. The current cholera pandemic—the world’s seventh—started in 1961, spreading from South Asia to Africa and the Americas. Every year, cholera outbreaks around the globe affect about 4 million people and lead to as many as 130,000 deaths.

An affordable, effective, and safe oral cholera vaccine, however, is proving to be a game changer in the fight against this often-forgotten disease. Thanks in large part to recent cholera vaccination campaigns, the number of cholera cases decreased globally by 60 percent in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Though 2019 saw an increase in cases, the total number of cholera deaths fell by 36 percent. . . .