It sounds like science fiction but it''s true: A killer
amoeba living in
lakes enters the body through the nose and
attacks the brain where it
feeds until you die.Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily
rare, it''s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases
has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in
the future.According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri
(nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL''-erh-eye) killed 23
people in the United States,
from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six
cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.
In Arizona, David Evans said nobody knew his son, Aaron, was
infected with the amoeba until after the 14-year-old died on Sept. 17.
At first, the teen seemed to be suffering from nothing more than a
headache.After doing more tests, doctors said Aaron probably picked up the
amoeba a week before while swimming in the balmy shallows of Lake
Havasu, a popular man-made lake on the Colorado River between Arizona
and California.
Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria
lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming
pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow
water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the
nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can
latch onto the olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain,
where it continues the damage, "basically feeding on the brain cells,"
Beach said.
People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches
and fevers. In the later stages, they''ll show signs of brain damage
such as hallucinations and behavioral changes, he said.
Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. Some
drugs have stopped the amoeba in lab experiments, but people who have
been attacked rarely survive, Beach said.Researchers still have much to learn about Naegleria. They don''t know
why, for example, children are more likely to be infected, and boys are
more often victims than girls.