Swimming becomes risky in America. On Friday, July 8, an American bather was declared infected with brain-eating amoeba , a microorganism that causes a devastating disease:
primary amoebic meningoencephalitis , which can cause death within weeks. The man fell ill yesterday after swimming in Lake of Three Fires in Taylor County, Iowa. The person responsible for man’s ailments is Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic single-celled amoeba that can cause a rare and potentially life-threatening brain infection called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). For this reason, the beach of Lake of Three Fires State Park, in Iowa in the United States, where the presence of the microorganism was revealed, has been temporarily closed to swimmers. Infections caused by amoeba can occur when the water in which Naegleria fowleri is present enters the body through the nose and travels up to the brain, where it destroys brain tissue. However, MAP is not contagious and is extremely rare:
“Since 1962, only 154 known cases have been identified in the United States, ” the health department said. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Naegleria fowleri usually lives in fresh water at varying temperatures, generally in warm thermal sources, ponds, rivers, hot water drains from industrial plants or power plants, swimming pools. , land sprayed with too much water and, rarely, even in colder lakes such as the Lake of Three Fires State Park. Symptoms begin with severe headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting before escalating into seizures, hallucinations, and coma. It takes about five days after infection for the initial symptoms of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis to occur, and the disease progresses very rapidly, usually leading to death between one and 18 days after symptoms begin. Previous:
In September 2020, a six-year-old boy died after being hospitalized with brain-eating amoeba in Lake Jackson, Texas. He was believed to have been infected after playing in a city splash pad. A seven-year-old boy in August 2021 died after becoming infected with PAM after swimming in a Northern California lake. The following month, a baby from Arlington, Texas died after being infected with amoeba in a splash pad. ” While rare, WFP is devastating and usually fatal ,” says the CDC. “ Of the well-documented cases, there are only five known survivors in North AmericaThey conclude. To reduce the risk of infection, the health department advises swimmers to limit the amount of water drawn through the nose, using nasal clips, or even keeping their heads out while swimming and avoiding entering the water when temperatures are very high. . When the water with the infectious forms accidentally arrives inside the nasal cavities, in fact, these forms can penetrate through the olfactory mucosa following a favorable temperature gradient and go up along the olfactory nerve fibers up to the brain through the olfactory bulbs:
From that moment on Naegleria fowleri , thanks to the optimal conditions of temperature and nutrients, multiplies very actively and rapidly, feeding on the brain nervous tissue that digest by secreting enzymes directly on it. The necrotic-hemorrhagic lesions of this disease make it fatal in more than 90% of cases. And then there are also the symptoms: fever, nausea, vomiting, headache, hallucinations that can then lead to a coma and death. To date, highlights Giovanni D’Agata , president of the “ Rights Desk There is no standard therapeutic protocol, although some drugs appear to have good effect but are still in the testing phase. However, remember that PAM is a rare disease caused by an even rarer protist. In Italy, the only case that ever occurred dates back to 2004 and involved a 9-year-old boy.
