Standard Operating Procedure for the Physicochemical Treatment of CTC Wastewaters

When cholera strikes in a low-income country, the rapid construction and successful operation of specialist cholera treatment centres (CTC) by medical NGOs can significantly reduce the mortality rate. Such has been the case in Haiti. Since cholera struck the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola in October 2010, in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake ten months earlier, Médecins Sans Frontières has operated five different CTCs and treated, as of October 2011, more than 160,000 cholera patients.
The primary objective of treating CTC wastewaters must always be a significant reduction in the number of the cholera pathogen (Vibrio cholerae) to levels that do not pose an additional transmission pathway for the disease in the local community. It should however be pointed out that effective wastewater treatment is one part of a multiple barrier approach to disease control (Curtis, 1996).