Appeared amoeba eats human brain

Thuan An

A bacterium that lives in a lake can invade the body through the nose and cause serious damage to the brain. In Florida (USA), the state government has set up a hotline advising people to avoid warm ponds, lakes and algae.

Texas health authorities also issued similar warnings. Havasu, an artificial pool on the Colorado River between the state of Arizona and the state of California, may be closed.

It seems fiction, but it is true: a dangerous amoeba living in ponds, lakes and pools has the ability to get into the body through the nose, then go deep inside and eat the brain. multiply to death. That type of amoeba called Naegleria Fowleri , killed 23 Americans during 1995-2004. Aaron, a 14-year-old boy in Arizona, suffered cerebral amebiasis when swimming at Lake Havasu and died on September 17, 2007.

This is one of six cases of infection and death recorded by US health authorities this year, three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. Hundreds of other similar cases have happened in the world since the Amoeba was discovered in Australia in 1960.

Naegleria Fowleri in brain tissue (Photo: Indicia.fr)

Brain-eating amoeba can live in all rivers and streams, warm lakes, even in swimming pools, in dead algae and sediment. You can become infected by swimming in shallow water and unintentionally letting Amip follow the water to get inside your nose. Brain-eating amoeba will destroy the tissues it encounters during the process of moving, and continue to cause damage to the brain because its basic food is brain cells.

People with cerebral amygdala have symptoms of neck pain, headache and fever, followed by signs of brain damage such as hallucinations or unusual behavior.

Because amoeba eats the brain that lives and grows in warm water, in the coming decades, when the temperature rises, there will be more cases of infection. Although there are a number of drugs that can prevent brain amoeba, it is only successful in the laboratory, in fact, patients often have less chance of surviving and will die within 2 weeks of appearing first symptoms.

Therefore, according to Michael Beach, a US National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), experts still have a lot of work to do with this bacterium.

For example, it is not clear why children are more susceptible to infection, and among the victims, the number of male children is higher than that of female children."Maybe because the boys are hyperactive and often swim more than girls," Beach said.

However, Mr. Beach also advised people not to be too confused. Because brain-eating amoeba is an extremely rare bacterium, even when microscopic examination. And in fact, the ratio between detected cases and those who regularly swim is extremely small.

(Photo: People.tribe.net)