Man dies from rare cholera-like disease in the UK

An elderly man has died after contracting a rare cholera-like illness that causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting.

The dad-of-two, who was aged in his 80s and fell ill at home, was under quarantine and died at a hospital in Nuneaton yesterday.

Doctors initially feared he had been exposed to the Victorian-era disease cholera.

The disease was eradicated from Britain in the 1860s and is today mainly found in the poorest parts of Asia and Africa.

The UKHSA has since determined that he had non-toxigenic vibrio cholerae, a related disease.

While the strain is rarely capable of producing the cholera toxin, it can secrete other toxins that can lead to severe health conditions like gastrointestinal illnesses, tissue infections and septicaemia.

Hospital staff allowed the man’s eldest son, who wore full PPE, to sit by his bedside as he passed away yesterday.

A source close to the family told The Sun: ‘They have no idea how he caught it.

‘They were asked by doctors if he’d been abroad recently, but he hadn’t. He lived at home with his youngest son.

‘His eldest was allowed to be in the room with him in full PPE as his life ebbed away.

‘It was incredibly traumatic.

‘Doctors called them on Sunday and said he could have just hours to live.

‘He clung on until Wednesday but withered away before their eyes.’

The non-toxigenic variant is spread through contact with contaminated water or consuming infected seafood. People can also be infected after being bitten by alligators or sharks.

Cholera is typically spread by consuming food or water containing faeces infected with the bacteria.

It killed 32,000 people between 1831 and 1832 alone, while a single epidemic in 1854 took 23,000 lives.

Today the five countries with the most annual reported cases are the Democratic Republic of Congo (4,522), Afghanistan (3,029), Yemen (1,144), Mozambique (896) and India (878), according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The source reportedly said that the British victim’s family suspected norovirus when he first fell ill.

They monitored his symptoms but called 111 once his condition deteriorated.

The source said the family was ‘devastated’ and are concerned about what to do with his possessions given his clothes had to be ‘incinerated’ when he arrived at hospital.

Health experts are on high-alert for health conditions that were previously thought to have been wiped out in Britain.

A leading scabies expert told Metro that schools and care homes were at high risk of break-outs, caused by skin-eating mites.

And last month, a huge Amazon warehouses saw ten cases of TB among staff.

The brutal disease, which was rampant in the 1800s, causes fluid to build up in the lungs and can be fatal if left untreated.

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