Strange patients in the US have brain eating amoeba while still ... living

In a report in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, doctors in the United States reported on a special case involving cerebral ingestion amoeba.

According to doctors who directly involved in the treatment of the patient, a woman in Seattle, the unnamed woman went to see a doctor when she had a chronic sinus infection and was very upset.

Doctors have recommended that she try and wash the nasal cavity with sterile water. However, instead of using sterile water, this woman used . tap water and auxiliary equipment bought at the pharmacy.

A year later, the woman began to show some unusual symptoms like a strange red rash outside her nose.

The brain-eating amoeba named Balamuthia mandrillari has been determined to attack the brain of women in Seattle before death.

In particular, after undergoing a violent seizure and loss of brain awareness, doctors began investigating the possibility of the problem in the woman's brain.

The CT scan showed that a woman had an area of ​​1.5cm in the back of the skull. It seems that a type of brain tumor is relatively common, so they quickly take her to the operating table.

"When I operated on this woman, a part of her brain the size of a golf ball was no longer as normal , " said Dr. Charles Cobbs, a neurosurgeon in Seattle.

After identifying, the doctors have found the cause of many people not being panic, the woman's brain was attacked by a brain-eating amoeba long before. It has a name: Balamuthia mandrillari .

These unicellular organisms can be found naturally in soil and fresh water around the world. The clearer evidence is that it seems that this woman has been infected with amoeba through washing her sinuses with tap water.

Although this is extremely rare, a person who constantly flushes untreated water on the nose is highly likely to have an attack of amoeba. However, doctors also said that in healthy people with good immune system, the rate of infection is extremely rare.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 200 cases of infection are reported worldwide. Although extremely rare, but once attacked by Balamuthia mandrillari, almost 90% of the cases result in death and unfortunately, the woman in Seattle died only one month after surgery.