When it comes to summer fun, there’s nothing better than a nice swim in a lake or pond or something else fun, cool, and refreshing.  However, swimming has dangers inherent into the activity.  For one, there’s the risk of drowning.  Now, apparently, there’s a secondary risk that’s pretty obscure, but has a 95% fatality rate.  It is Naegleri fowleri, a rare amoeba that lives in warm fresh water that attacks the brain, causing death.  The brain-eating amoeba is blamed for three deaths in 2011.

“She would sit up in bed and just look at me, and I would ask her what was wrong,” said P.J. Nash-Ryder, whose 16-year-old daughter was recently infected by Naegleri fowleri.  “She would say, ‘I don’t know.’  And I’d tell her to lay back down.  Her eyes were rolling … and she wouldn’t shut them all the way.”

As it turns out, the amoeba was attacking her brain, according to Jonathan Yoder, a waterborne disease and outbreak surveillance coordinator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.  “It causes a great deal of trauma and a great deal of damage.  It’s a tragic infection.  It’s right at the frontal lobe.  It affects behavior and the core of who they are — their emotions, their ability to reason — it’s very difficult.”

Fortunately, Naegleri fowleri doesn’t deliberately attack humans, and it is not a parasite as of such.  It is usually introduced into humans when water is forced up the nose, and it generally lives in warm water.  So if you wear nose plugs, don’t swim in untreated fresh water (no matter how cool the river looks), and avoid stirring up the sediment on the bottom of the lake or river where the amoeba generally lives, you should be okay.  After all, only 32 known infections have occurred over the past 10 years, which is pretty good odds.

Tags: Naegleria fowleri, brain-eating amoeba, brain-eating amoeba blamed in three deaths, unusual diseases, unusual infections,  P.J. Nash-Ryder, unusual infections, amoeba infections, Jonathan Yoder, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warm water leads to amoeba infection in the brain, frontal lobe injuries

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