Currently hyper virulent V. cholerae O1 El Tor variant carrying cholera toxin B subunit of classical strain have been reported spreading most part of the world. An outbreak of cholera that occurred during January 2011 was investigated in Puri district, Odisha India. A total of 15 rectal swabs and 6 water samples were collected from hospitalized diarrhoea patients and environmental sources respectively. Samples were bacteriologically analyzed to isolate bacterial enteropathogens, antibiogram profiles and detection of various toxic genes. Four V. cholerae O1 El Tor biotype was isolated and confirmed as El Tor variant carrying ctxB gene of classical. The investigation revealed that the resident V. cholerae O1 El Tor biotype was replaced by El Tor variant in Puri area and its spread in the coastal district should be closely monitored.
El Tor variant, Vibrio cholerae, Odisha
© The Author(s) 2014. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.