How does Vibrio cholerae benefit from infecting its host?

Question

As far as I know, *V. cholerae* secretes a toxin called choleragen into the intestinal lumen which affects the intestinal epithelial cells causing release of Na+ and Cl- ions into the lumen and reducing the lumen's water potential which causes water to flow into the intestinal lumen resulting in diarrhea. How does this benefit *V. cholera* in any way?

Answer 1

Hi! So from a parasites view, there are often two main objectives - reproduce, and spread to a new host. In this case, the resulting diarrhea causes the host to expel V. cholera into the environment, where it can get picked up by another host. This is theoretically quite beneficial to the V. cholera in allowing it to spread, particularly to the water supply, where it is picked up either by drinking contaminated water or eating infected organisms from the water, like shellfish.