Zimbabwe is on high alert to curtail cholera

Cholera spreads fast in explosive epidemics, and can kill, by dehydration, in just hours. It’s caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which spreads in food and water tainted by infected faeces. Despite the fact that we’ve known the fundamentals of its prevention it since the 1850s, it precipitates an estimated 21,000 to 143,000 deaths a year worldwide, surging often amid war and disaster.