In this sense, what the Vibrio cholerae bacterium desires, more than anything, is an environment in which human beings have a regular habit of eating other people’s excrement. V. cholerae cannot be transmitted through the air or even through the exchange of most bodily fluids. The ultimate route of transmission is almost invariably the same: an infected person emits the bacteria during one of the violent bouts of diarrhea that are the disease’s trademark, and another person somehow ingests some of the bacteria, usually through drinking contaminated water.
