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Six deaths this year from brain-eating amoeba

Infection Control Monitor, October 5, 2007

While encounters with a microscopic amoeba that lives in warm lakes are extraordinarily rare, it has killed six boys and young men this year in the United States, reported the Associated Press.

In what sounds like science fiction, the amoeba enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until the victim dies. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, especially since the amoeba likes warm temperatures and global warming could mean more cases in the future.

The amoeba, called Naegleria fowleri, killed 23 people in the United States from 1994 to 2005, according to the CDC. This year, three cases occurred in Florida, two in Texas, and one in Arizona where a 14-year-old boy died on September 17. Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. People become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom where the amoeba feeds on algae and bacteria. If water then enters the nose, the amoeba can attach itself.

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