# Cholera transmission and evolution in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA · 2020 · $654,992

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Cholera is an ancient disease that has shown a remarkable ability to persist and spread in the
modern world. On October 21, 2010, isolation of toxigenic Vibrio cholerae O1 from patients living along the
Artibonite River was confirmed by the National Laboratory of Public Health of the Ministry of Public Health
and Population (MSPP) in Haiti, the first cholera cases identified in Haiti in over 100 years. PFGE, VNTR,
and sequence data subsequently demonstrated the essentially clonal relationship among strains, consistent
with a point-source introduction of the microorganism. As of August 15, 2015, Haiti has reported a total of
746,469 cholera cases, with 427,841 hospitalizations and 8,985 deaths. After passage of the initial
epidemic waves, the disease has moved into a chronic, endemic pattern, with periodic outbreaks associated
with the rainy season and/or localized flooding; however, disease burden remains substantial, with 10,328
cholera cases, 8,124 hospitalizations, and 106 deaths reported in the first three months of 2015 alone.
 Cholera in Haiti, while a public health disaster, also represents a unique “natural experiment,” where
an epidemic has been caused by a single clone introduced onto an island: we have a complete
characterization of the initial clone, and know exactly when and where it was introduced, permitting accurate
assessments to be made of environmental persistence, transmission, and evolution of the microorganism.
Our group from University of Florida has been involved in NIH-funded studies of cholera in a rural area of
Haiti west of Port-au-Prince. However, to provide the data necessary for control of the disease in Haiti, we
need comparable data from Port-au-Prince, where 1/3 of the Haitian population lives. While most work to
date on cholera has been in rural settings, in Bangladesh and India, problems with the disease are
increasingly centered in periurban slums/shantytowns in the global mega-cities, sites for which transmission
data are limited. The current proposal, written in collaboration with GHESKIO (an organization which has
been providing medical and public health services in the periurban slums of Port-au-Prince for over 30
years), seeks to make use of the unique situation in Haiti to address global issues relevant to cholera
transmission in urban/periurban slum areas. Specific Aims include the following:
Specific Aim 1: Establishment of systematic environmental surveillance for V. cholerae O1 in periurban slum
areas of Port-au-Prince, and identification of risk factors for presence of the microorganism;
Specific Aim 2: Characterization and identification of risk factors for household cholera transmission,
including determination of rates of asymptomatic infection within households; and
Specific Aim 3: Application of phylodynamic techniques to assess ongoing evolutionary changes in clinical
and environmental V. cholerae O1 strains, and characterization of the evolutionary forces (such as
va...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9970388
- **Project number:** 5R01AI126357-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- **Principal Investigator:** John Glenn Morris
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $654,992
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-07-01 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9970388

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9970388, Cholera transmission and evolution in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (5R01AI126357-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9970388. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*