Cholera vaccine stocks could save millions of refugees in Nepal

First the quake, now the disease. The earthquake in Nepal on 25 April drove 2.8 million people into tents with little clean water or sanitation. Infections like hepatitis and diarrhoea are now appearing, but the biggest fear is cholera. It hasn’t appeared yet, but it hits Nepal every rainy season. Those rains are due in June. Yet, help is on the way. Nepal has an emergency vaccine to try to head off cholera, a first in such a natural disaster. This is because of a vaccine stockpile set up in response to the cholera that struck Haiti after an earthquake in 2010 – cholera carried there, ironically, by Nepalese peacekeepers. It will be no panacea; cholera experts stress that supplying clean water and toilets, and isolating and treating any cases, are still essential. But Nepal also now has 18,000 doses of Shanchol, an oral vaccine made of dead cholera bacteria by Shantha Biotechnics of...