In a cholera outbreak response, providing effective care to prevent death is usually the priority, while measures are taken to reduce the number of new infections.
Most or all of the means described in Chapter 3 must be deployed to achieve the goals of reducing mortality and transmission.
The manner in which this deployment occurs varies depending on the context: setting (e.g. urban, rural, endemic, non-endemic), allocated resources and response capacity, concurrent crises, profile of previous epidemics, etc.
An analysis of the situation (Chapter 2) is required before developing any response strategy.
All actors involved in the cholera response must be coordinated to ensure that the key interventions are carried out while avoiding duplication and gaps. Typically, the Ministry of Health is responsible for coordinating the response and implementing an outbreak response committee (or crisis cell). Any intervention must be in agreement with the Ministry of Health.
A strategy can change as the outbreak evolves. For example, the number of people affected and the spatial spread of the outbreak can be different to that initially expected. Constant monitoring of epidemiologic data and evaluation of the response (Chapter 8) permit strategies to be adapted.