There can be nothing more satisfying or tonic than diving into a glistening lake or river to cool off , but in sure , exceedingly rare circumstances , this can prove to be a fateful mistake , thanks to a freshwater - dwelling ameba . This has already been demonstrated once this summer , and saddeningly perhaps twice , as two cases of infection with this “ brain - feeding ” parasite have already been report in the U.S.
The being blamed in both of these billet is a free - living , single - celled amoeba calledNaegleria fowleri . It ’s ubiquitous in the environment , intend it ’s found somewhat much everywhere , but it ’s heat - hump ( thermophilic ) and often found in warm freshwater , like lakes or hot give . People are therefore often queer to this being and nothing come of it , but in rare circumstances it can cause a serious brain infection called main amoebic meningoencephalitis ( PAM ) .
This usually only happens when the being is forced up the nose , for example during recreational activities such as swimming or diving event , which give it an chance to breach the nasal cavity and later make its way up the olfactory nervus – needed for odour perception – and into the brain .
From here , it feeds on nervous tissue paper using sucker - like structures , set off an incitive immune response that have a severe increment in pressure in the skull , finally kill the infected individual about 97 % of the clock time .
The latest cases experienced in the U.S. have both been reported in the last calendar month . The first was a 21 - year - old adult female from Central California , whose contagion was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC),CBS Newsreports . After waking up on June 16 with nausea that had not resolved itself a Clarence Day later , the victim was admitted to Northern Inyo Hospital where she was diagnosed with meningitis , which present itself similarly . Her condition worsened and she later croak after being transferred to a unlike hospital in Nevada .
It ’s passing hard to ascertain where she take the amoeba , but harmonise toCBS News , official say it ’s likely that she became septic on a private property that is inaccessible to the world . But even if it were an area normally used by the public , panic would not be justify as PAM is very rare .
The second case , however , is even more out of the ordinary . As reported by theMinnesota Department of Health , an on-going investigation is taking place for a suspected case of PAM in a14 - year - old boywho is presently critically sick . Officials in the department established that he became infected in Lake Minnewaska , Pope County , commemorate the third infection to be see in Minnesota in the past five eld .
These three cases are interesting because the majority of U.S. infections have fall out in warmer southerly state like Florida and Texas , and before 2010 it had never been reported above Missouri . This indicates that the organism is spreading northward , which could possibly beattributable to climate changegivenN. fowleri ’s preference for warmer waters . But this does n’t needs indicate a next rise in lawsuit ; between 2002 and 2011 only 32 infections were report in the U.S. , so they ’re still extremely rare .
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