NPR: All Things Considered

August 2019 - What if you could put a drop of water into a miniature laboratory – not much bigger than a smartphone — and find out if the water contains the bacterium that causes cholera?

A simple test like that could help prevent outbreaks of the disease, which sickens as many as 4 million and kills up to 143,000 each year, mostly in poorer countries.

The ancient disease of cholera is spread primarily through drinking water that contains the bacterium called Vibrio cholerae.