Background: Facilities such as the Pasteur Institute in Paris are being pressed to the limit in the current plague situation which has come to India. With the death toll rising, and the threat of monsoon rains which are sure to spread the plague, the Institute has been working on an emergency basis to produce the much-needed cholera vaccine.

Massive international food and medical assistance has been pouring into India and with it the hopeful signs have appeared. Calcutta, the teeming city of over 8-million, the focal point of many refugees and thus a fertile breeding ground for the plague has so far been spared. Six cases were reported last week but they were quickly isolated. The city has been cordoned off from the more than 40,000 refugees encamped on the outskirts.

Spread by more than five million who have crossed the border from East Pakistan, the cholera plague, according to Indian authorities has claimed more than 3,000 victims. These official figures, announced on June 6th do not, according to observers reflect the true picture. The unofficial estimates place the toll at well over 8,000.