Oral cholera vaccine ‘offers protection for five years’

Cholera can now be prevented effectively for five years with an oral vaccine, a clinical trial in India has shown. Details of the trial are to be published in the December issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The paper reported that the oral vaccine Shanchol, manufactured by Shantha Biotechnics of Hyderabad, India, was 65 per cent more effective than a placebo at protecting study subjects from the disease over five years. With its ability to spread rapidly, cholera can overwhelm public health services and require substantial resources to tackle. African countries alone spent US$156 million on the disease in 2007 alone, according to Berni Nor, a research advisor at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), which part-funded the vaccine’s development. In 2010, the WHO issued guidance supporting the use of oral cholera vaccines in public health programmes in conjunction with other preventative measures such as ensuring access to clean drinking water. The following...