“The article didn’t say she had cholera. It said she had a “cholera-like infection”.”
In microbiological circles “Cholera like” is what they say when there are all the symptoms of Cholera without a definitive identification of the organism. In poor countries like in Southeast Asia, all they might do is look under a microscope and see a motile, comma shaped organism. If the patient only had severe diarrhea they would not have used the C-word. It tends to cause panic.