You may remember the cholera outbreak in Haiti following the deadly earthquake there.

The bacteria are generally transmitted in water or food that has been contaminated with infected feces. Cholera is a diarrheal illness caused by a toxigenic form of a bacterium called Vibrio cholera.Typhoid fever is rare in the United States – there are approximately 400 cases each year and 75% of those are acquired while traveling internationally. Once a person has Typhoid fever, they can shed the bacteria in their stool or urine for days to weeks and potentially make others ill. Typhoid fever is caused by Salmonella Typhi, a bacterium that is contracted by consuming contaminated food or drink.This quick action is what stops further transmission. If an outbreak is suspected, public health laboratories test samples to positively identify the agent that is causing the disease, while epidemiologists and public health nurses work in coordination with sanitarians to identify the source of the infection. In industrialized nations, anyone who contracts these diseases is protected by the medical and public health systems, and the spread of disease is halted. If typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery are left untreated, they can become deadly, causing severe dehydration. Americans traveling to these destinations are often encouraged to get vaccinated and to be extra careful to thoroughly wash their hands, avoid tap water and consume only cooked foods. But the “deadly three” are not rare in developing nations.

Luckily, those of us living in industrialized nations (United States, Canada, Japan, Western Europe, etc.) have access to sophisticated modern sanitation and water treatment systems, which make these diseases so rare that they are nearly non-existent. Three deadly diseases featured in The Oregon Trail – typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery– were caused by poor sanitation. But what are these diseases? And do they still exist? You had to find more food or water or just wait out whatever the disease was that had infected someone in your wagon. As a young player, these messages would pop up on our screen and result and in “Aw, man!” They meant that your trek was delayed or even over. The Oregon Trail was real and so were the many diseases faced by those who traveled it. What many children may not have realized as they played this game is that the experiences were real. They also likely remember fording the river, hunting buffalo, and losing a family member to dysentery. If you ask anyone who played the game what they learned, however, it was that the Apple II had terrible graphics.

By Michelle Forman, Senior Media Specialist, APHLĪnyone who was in grade-school in the mid-1980s and 1990s likely remembers The Oregon Trail, a computer game where you had to navigate the treacherous conditions faced by American pioneers who used this lone passageway to travel from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon.

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