Brain-Eating Amoeba Strikes in Summer
Six Deaths in 2007 From Amoeba in Warm Fresh Water
May 29, 2008 -- Six young men died last year after swimming in lakes or pools infested with a brain-eating amoeba, the CDC reports.
The bad blobs -- known as Naegleria fowleri or N. fowleri -- thrive in warm, fresh water all over the world. But the key word here is warm. The amoeba loves heat. In the U.S., it inhabits the relatively hot waters of lakes, hot springs, and poorly maintained pools in Southern or Southwestern states.
Parenting Videos
Video: What Is aHigh Fever?
Video: ObesityEducation
Video: Kids andCold Medicines
All Parenting-RelatedVideos
Related Slideshows
Related to parenting
parenting tips, potty training, baby food, pink eye, chicken pox, asthma, lice, autism, newborns, toddlers, preschoolers, schoolage, teens, tantrums, breastfeeding, ADHD
© 2008 WebMD, LLC. All rightsreserved.
All six of the 2007 cases were in Florida, Texas, and Arizona (the victims' names and swimming sites come from local media reports):
- May/June 2007: Angel Arroyo Vasquez, age 14, of Orlando, Fla., was swimming in an apartment swimming pool.
- July 2007: Will Sellars, age 11, of Orlando, Fla., was swimming and wakeboarding in Lake Conway.
- August 2007: Richard Almeida, age 10, of Kissimmee, Fla., was swimming and wakeboarding at Orlando Watersports Complex.
- August 2007: John "Jack" Herrera, age 12, participated in water activities during summer camp at Lake LBJ in Texas.
- August 2007: Colby Sawyer, age 22, ruptured his eardrum while wakeboarding at Lake LBJ in Texas.
- September 2007: Aaron Evans, age 14, was swimming at Lake Havasu in northeastern Arizona.
Why the deadly amoeba struck these six and not the thousands of other people exposed in the same places at the same times is a mystery, says CDC epidemiologist Jonathan Yoder.
"Humans are the accidental host -- we are not part of this amoeba's life cycle," Yoder tells WebMD. "But when it finds a nice warm environment like your nose, it looks for a food source."
How Brain-Eating Amoebas Attack
That food source is the human brain. The CDC doesn't like to call N. fowleri "the brain-eating amoeba," but that's what it does.
"It actually is using the brain for food," Yoder says. "So it is a very tragic situation for the person unfortunate enough to have that happen."
After the amoeba enters the nose, it finds its way to the olfactory nerve. N. fowleri appears to be attracted to nerve cells, so it follows the nerve into the brain. That's when bad things happen.