Urgency and public-health context

Cholera urgency checklist

Use symptoms and outbreak context to organise the next step. Only a health service and local public-health system can assess or confirm cholera.

Do not wait for this tool. Profuse watery diarrhoea can cause dangerous dehydration within hours. Seek urgent medical care now for very frequent watery stools, inability to drink, repeated vomiting, marked thirst, lethargy, confusion, fainting, sunken eyes or very little urine. If the person can drink, begin packaged oral rehydration solution exactly as its instructions direct while arranging care; do not delay travel to obtain it. Follow local outbreak instructions.

Private checklist

Diarrhoea and vomiting
Dehydration and shock signs
Higher-risk and public-health context

Next-step summary

Complete the checklist. No result can rule out cholera.

Safe workflow

Shock signs or inability to drink trigger emergency rehydration-capable care. Very frequent watery stools, repeated vomiting, dehydration signs or blood in stool trigger urgent assessment. Acute watery diarrhoea in a higher-risk person or outbreak context routes to same-day care and official local public-health guidance. Packaged oral rehydration solution is mentioned only for a person who is awake and can drink, exactly as labelled, without delaying travel. The app supplies no antibiotics, doses or home-mixing recipe.

Official sources, reviewed 26 July 2026: WHO cholera fact sheet (5 December 2024); WHO cholera outbreaks questions and answers (10 March 2023).