[user104658]

It spreads through contaminated food and water ... you have to ingest it. I'm assuming the misinformation is that it's spreading directly person to person and they believe they're going to catch it from each other.

That said, perhaps it's difficult to get hold of water that you can be sure isn't contaminated? In which case, yes, you'd want to get out of there pretty quick as you can't go long without water. However you can make water safe to drink by adding 2 drops of plain ol' bleach per litre and it's perfectly safe to drink so there are some very simple and inexpensive solutions to stopping the spread of something like cholera.