Modern History of Cholera Vaccines and the Pivotal Role of icddr,b
Abstract The rapid spread of the 7 th cholera pandemic over Asia in the 1960s led to several large field studies that revealed that the traditional injectable cholera vaccines had poor efficacy, usually less than 50% for only 3-6 months, which led WHO in the 1970s to stop recommending cholera vaccination. At the same time, it stimulated research that has led to the development of the effective orally administered cholera vaccines (OCVs) that today are a cornerstone in WHO´s strategy for “Ending Cholera – A Global Roadmap to 2030”. The first effective OCV, Dukoral™, containing a mixture of inactivated Vibrio cholerae bacteria and cholera toxin B subunit, was licenced in 1993 and is together with two similar inactivated whole-cell OCVs, Shanchol™ and Euvichol™/Euvichol-Plus™, the OCVs currently prequalified and recommended by WHO. This brief review is a personalized account of the “modern history” of the development of these now universally recognized effective tools for the control and ultimate elimination of cholera, and of the pivotal role of icddr,b and Bangladesh for this development.