Six Basic Cholera Prevention Messages

• Before you eat or prepare food
• Before feeding your children
• After using the latrine or toilet
• After cleaning your child’s bottom
• After taking care of someone ill with diarrhea

* If no soap is available, scrub hands often with ash or sand and rinse with safe water.

• Use latrines or other sanitation systems, like chemical toilets, to dispose of feces.
• Wash hands with soap and safe water after defecating.
• Clean latrines and surfaces contaminated with feces using a solution of 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water.

What if I don’t have a latrine or chemical toilet?

• Defecate at least 30 meters (98 ft) away from any body of water and then bury your feces.
• Dispose of plastic bags containing feces in latrines, at collection points if available, or bury it in the ground. Do not put plastic bags in chemical toilets.
• Dig new latrines or temporary pit toilets at least a half-meter (1.6 ft) deep and at least 30 meters (98 ft) away from any body of water.

• Boil it, Cook it, Peel it, or Leave it.
• Be sure to cook shellfish (like crabs and crayfish) until they are very hot all the way through.

*Avoid raw foods other than fruits and vegetables you have peeled yourself.

• Wash yourself, your children, diapers, and clothes, 30 meters (98 feet) away from drinking water sources.

The FDA recently approved a single-dose live oral cholera vaccine called Vaxchora. Vaxchora is recommended for adults who are 18 – 64 years old and are traveling to an area of active cholera transmission with toxigenic Vibrio cholerae O1 (the bacteria strain that most commonly causes cholera) to prevent infection. For more information, please visit the Vaccines page.