It gave him the rare bacterial infection Vibrio vulnificus, which kills about 50 per cent of its victims within 48 hours.

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The older shots, made of killed Vibrio cholerae, do not stimulate the immune system in the right way.

ECONOMIST: The cholera genome

The Centers for Disease Control says five people have died from infection with Vibrio vulnificus, a form of the bacteria that causes cholera.

CNN

Such novel proteins may also hold the key to explaining Vibrio cholerae's great mystery: how a free-floating marine microorganism can turn into such a killer.

ECONOMIST: The cholera genome

Marshall Shnider says that his are tested twice a week, and moreover that there has never, ever been a case of vibrio from a farmed Pacific Northwest oyster.

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The CDC said that five people who survived Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans died after becoming infected with Vibrio vulnificus, caused by a form of the bacteria that also causes cholera.

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Having the genome sequence to hand should give researchers an opportunity to start tinkering with other Vibrio genes to see which are responsible for such collateral damage, and perhaps to deactivate them in existing formulations.

ECONOMIST: The cholera genome

Its nastiest toxin is actually part of a virus which settled in it millions of years ago, and Dr Heidelberg and his colleagues speculate that most of the second chromosome was also picked up from somewhere else along Vibrio's evolutionary way.

ECONOMIST: The cholera genome