Epidemiological study of the cholera outbreak in the city of Erbil- Kurdistan region / Iraq

Background and objective: Cholera is a highly contagious acute diarrheal infection caused by Gram negative Vibro cholerae. A number of disease outbreaks are recorded annually in different countries around the world. The aim of current study is characterization of the 2022 cholera outbreak in the city of Erbil, Kurdistan region/ Iraq. Methods: The data of2,192 suspected cholera patients who were admitted to the hospital in the period from June 2022 to September 2022. Results: The results show that 205 (9.4%) of the hospital-admitted patients were identified as cholera positive, and they have complete data. The mean age ±SD of cholera cases was of 35.71 ± 21.9 years old. No association between males and females regarding the age distribution of cholera cases, and the percentage of male-to female-patients were close together (50.2% males to 49.8% females). Moreover, the etiology of the outbreak was identified as V. cholerae O1 serotype Ogawa. The antibiotic sensitivity test of the isolates showed that the strains are sensitive towards meropenem (10µg), Gentamicin (10µg), and Ciprofloxacin (10µg), whereas all the tested bacterial samples shown to be resistant to trimethoprim. Conclusion: The etiology of the cholera outbreak in the city of Erbil was V. cholerae O1 serotype Ogawa. Around half of the infected people were aged between 20 to 44 years old. This is the first report on the recent outbreak in the Erbil-Iraq.