Researchers have discovered the first confirmed case of someone contracting a deadly brain-eating amoeba known as Naegleria fowleri through tap water. Prior victims were infected after swimming in warm bodies of freshwater. A study published this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases reported that a 5-year-old Louisiana boy did, in fact, pick up the microorganism from tap water, possibly via a Slip n’ Slide. About two weeks later, he perished from an infection known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Naegleria fowleri is called the brain-eating amoeba because it can digest neural tissues. Upon entering the body via the nasal passages, N. fowleri penetrates bone between the sinuses and the brain to form an infection, breaking down nerve cells in the process. Ensuing swelling of the brain occurrs, ushering in PAM, which is usually fatal. PAM kills up to eight people per year in the US, usually males with a median age of 12. The Louisiana boy was taken to a hospital in July 2013 after he acquired a 104-degree Fahrenheit (40° C) fever and complained of a devastating headache, in addition to bouts of vomiting. Doctors later recorded two short “staring episodes,” in which the boy would gaze straight ahead for a few seconds without responding. The infection, though, could not be identified or halted after several tests and antibiotics. The boy eventually developed seizures, and was declared brain dead. His family took him off life support five days after he entered the New Orleans hospital, according to Newsweek. His was the first confirmed case to have been triggered by tap or faucet water, and not freshwater immersion, according to study author Jennifer Cope, a medical epidemiologist for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:18:04 +0000
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