Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholera (nd). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/cholera/general/). A lot of research has been conducted and it has been concluded that thousands of people are infected around the world. For more than two centuries, cholera has eluded some of the world's leading scientists and still remains a threat to the world's populations. A serious cholera epidemic broke out in India in 1817; from India the disease spread to Russia, appearing rapidly and crossing the entire continent. Cholera is believed to have originated in 1817 at the Ganges River in India and subsequently spread to other areas and regions due to poor water removal, mainly by British ships. Cholera is not particularly easy to catch. Although microorganisms must have been abundant during nineteenth-century epidemics, many people probably ingested them without harm, since human stomach acids often kill microorganisms before they reach the intestine where problems begin. With the expansion of the Western world, many people fell ill with cholera due to overcrowding in living spaces. In some cities, overcrowding often involved neighborhoods below street level, where water constantly seeped into the living area. In many Latin and African countries, the cholera virus is more common due to poor sanitation, hygiene, and lack of public health education. In an epidemic, the source of contamination is usually the feces of an infected person contaminating water or food. The disease can spread like wildfire in areas with poor wastewater and drinking water treatment. In Europe in 1800 many people fell ill with cholera due to water taken from nearby streams and rivers...... middle of paper......ura, an epidemic which also focused attention on environmental evils of the early industrial stages of urbanization, but was used to divert attention from the carriers of the disease, the immigrants who travel to the United States daily. Travelers are advised to use caution when areas visiting countries with a cholera epidemic (for example, parts of Africa, Asia, or Latin America) may be exposed to the cholera bacterium. Many cases of cholera have been caused by contaminated seafood brought into the United States by travelers who visited some of the countries listed above. Researchers are working hard to find a way to stop the spread of cholera and raise public awareness about the spread and harmful effects of cholera contamination. It is vital that everyone in the world has adequate sanitation and access to clean water so we can fight this terrible disease.