Science / Medicine : 15 Cholera Cases Reported in U.S.

U.S. authorities have diagnosed 15 cases of cholera in recent weeks but say there is little chance that the disease now sweeping South America will become epidemic in the United States. Cholera cases have been diagnosed in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Georgia, all in people who contracted the disease in Latin America, epidemiologist Alan Ries of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said last week.

“There have been no secondary transmissions from these people and we are not predicting a large epidemic in the United States,” Ries said.

Six countries have reported more than 250,000 cholera cases, most of them in Peru, in Latin America’s first cholera epidemic this century. Twenty-six cases have been reported from Mexico.