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First Cholera Pandemic
The first cholera pandemic emerged out of Ganges Delta with an outbreak in Jessore, India, in 1817, stemming from contaminated rice. The disease quickly spread throughout most of India, modern-day Myanmar, and modern-day Sri Lanka by traveling along trade routes established by Europeans. Jan 18 José de San Martín leads a revolutionary army over the Andes to attack Spanish royalists in Chile. -
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Cholera
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Cholera reaches Thailand
By 1820, cholera had spread to Thailand, Indonesia killing 100,000 people on the island of Java alone and the Philippines. From Thailand and Indonesia, the disease made its way to China in 1820 and Japan in 1822 by way of infected people on ships. It also spread beyond Asia in 1821 when British troops traveling from India to Oman brought cholera to the Persian Gulf. -
The Pandemic Dies Out
The pandemic died out 6 years after it began, likely thanks to a severe winter in 1823–1824, which may have killed the bacteria living in water supplies. -
Second Cholera Pandemic Starts
The second pandemic is thought to have originated from India. it spread to Eastern, Central Asia, and the Middle East. By autumn of 1830, cholera had made it to Moscow. The spread of the disease temporarily slowed during the winter, but picked up again in spring of 1831, reaching Finland and Poland. It then passed into Hungary and Germany. -
Cholera Riots
The disease subsequently spread throughout Europe, including reaching Great Britain for the first time via the port of Sunderland in late 1831 and London in spring of 1832. Britain enacted several actions to help curb the spread of the disease, including implementing quarantines and establishing local boards of health. But the public began to distrust authority figures,most of all doctors. Unbalanced press reporting led people to think that more victims died in the hospital than their homes. -
Second Cholera Pandemic Continues
In 1832, cholera had also made it to the Americas. In June of that year, Quebec saw 1,000 deaths from the disease, which quickly spread along the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries. Around the same time, cholera imported into the United States, appearing in New York and Philadelphia. Over the next couple of years, it would spread across the country. It reached Latin America, including Mexico and Cuba, in 1833. The pandemic would die out and reemerge for nearly two decades until around 1851 -
Four More Cholera Pandemics
The world would see four more cholera pandemics between 1852 and 1923. The third pandemic, stretching 1852–1859, was the deadliest. It devastated Asia, Europe, North America and Africa, killing 23,000 people in Great Britain alone in 1854, the worst single year of cholera. In that year, British physician John Snow carefully mapped cholera cases in the Soho area of London, allowing him to identify the source of the disease in the area: Contaminated water from a public well pump. -
Fourth and Fifth Cholera Pandemics
The fourth and fifth cholera pandemics—occurring 1863–1875 and 1881–1896, were overall less severe than previous pandemics, but had their fair share of deadly outbreaks. Between 1872 and 1873, for example, Hungary suffered 190,000 deaths from cholera. And Hamburg lost nearly 1.5 percent of its population due to cholera in the 1892 outbreak. around this time in March 1, Yellowstone becomes the world's first national park. -
Finding The Cholera Bacterium
In 1883, German microbiologist Robert Koch, studied cholera in Egypt and Calcutta. He developed a technique allowing him to grow and describe V. cholerae, and then show that the presence of the bacterium in intestines causes cholera.
However, Italian microbiologist Filippo Pacini had actually identified the cholera bacterium—naming it cholerigenic vibrios in 1854, though this fact wasn’t widely known. -
The Sixth Cholera Pandemic
The sixth cholera pandemic 1899–1923 largely didn’t affect western Europe and North America due to advances in public health and sanitation. But the disease still ravaged India, Russia, the Middle East and northern Africa. By 1923, cholera cases had dissipated throughout much of the world, except India it killed more than half a million people in India in both 1918 and 1919. -
Seventh Cholera Pandemic (current pandemic)
Unlike previous pandemics, which all originated in India, the seventh and current cholera pandemic began in Indonesia in 1961. It spread across Asia and the Middle East, reaching Africa in 1971. In 1990, more than 90 percent of all cholera cases reported were from the African continent. -
Seventh Cholera Pandemic (current pandemic)
In 1991, cholera appeared in Peru, and returned to South America after being absent for 100 years. It killed 3,000 people in Peru in this first year and subsequently spread to Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Chile, and then Central America and Mexico.
Though the current cholera pandemic has affected some 120 countries, it’s largely a disease of impoverished, less-developed nations. -
Seventh Cholera Pandemic (current pandemic)
In recent years, there have been a number of devastating outbreaks, including the Zimbabwe outbreak of 2008–2009 that affected some 97,000 people killing 4,200 and the Haiti outbreak of 2010–2011, which followed the Haiti earthquake and would affect more than 500,000 people.
In 2017, outbreaks of cholera broke out in Somalia and Yemen. By August 2017, the Yemen outbreak affected 500,000 people and killed 2,000 people, making it the largest cholera epidemic in the world today, according to WHO.
