by Health Editor
A year after the accident the teenager in a wheelchair and unable to speak . In over 60 years the fifth person (out of 154) who is saved from the deadly parasite
A 14-year-old boy, Caleb, miraculously survived a severe brain infection in Florida caused by a brain-eating amoeba, which has a mortality rate of about 97%. As NBC reports The boy spent almost a year in the hospital and fortunately managed to survive even if with permanent damage to speech and walking.
The long hospitalization
The virus struck the teenager while he was swimming off the beach in Port Charlotte on July 1, 2022. Six days after the swim, the boy began complaining of headaches and fever and later also suffered from hallucinations. His parents accompanied him to the hospital on 9 July and even during the hour-long journey his conditions worsened further. The boy arrived at Golisano Children’s Hospital in southwestern Florida in desperate condition. The doctors told the mother that the son would now have only four days to live. The boy battled the virus for eight months, remaining barely conscious. Since last March he has begun rehabilitation and is now able to communicate and stand, his ability to speak is also impaired and he moves around in a wheelchair. The boy expresses himself with facial expressions and in the first five months he spent without speaking he expressed himself by moving an eyebrow. Between 1962 and 2021, 154 people in the United States were affected by brain-eating amoeba and only four survived: Caleb the fifth.
How is the infection contracted?
The scientific name for the brain-eating amoeba is more common Naegleria fowleri, a tiny parasite with a very simple structure (it measures 20 micrometres or thousandths of a millimetre) which however can infect various animals, especially mammals. Man risks contracting it by swimming in rivers or lakes, especially when the water is warm or hot, and also through nasal washings with infected waters. The parasite enters right through the nose (if the water goes into the mouth there is no risk) and goes up the olfactory nerve, up to the brain. L multiplies very quickly, feeding on brain nervous tissue.
Symptoms
The lesions are so serious and extensive as to make the disease lethal in almost all cases. Swimming in pools can also be a risk factor if the water and filters are not cleaned properly. In humans, the infection with Naegleria fowleri can cause an extremely serious disease, in a very high percentage lethal: the primary amoebic meningoencephalitis which affects the central nervous system. Symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, disorientation, stiff neck, loss of balance, seizures, hallucinations. If not diagnosed and treated immediately, it leads to death within a week. Naegleria fowleri is 99% fatal – said the boy’s mother – but 100% preventable. In fact, the family bought a box of nose plugs to distribute on the beach where Caleb was struck by the amoeba a year ago. To stop the parasite, a simple gesture is enough: swimming with a nose plug to prevent any amoeba from climbing up the nasal septa and reaching the brain.
July 21, 2023 (change July 21, 2023 | 16:26)
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