It ’s July , and , like clockwork , brain - eating ameba are back in the news . Last workweek , the mortal parasite Naegleria fowleri , which expand in tender consistence of fresh water , claimed the life of a 21 - yr - old womanhood from Inyo County , California . Now a baby in Minnesota is think to have developed principal amebic meningoencephalitis ( PAM ) , the rare , normally fatal form of meningitis stimulate by N. fowleri .
Minnesota nation health officials report Tuesday nightthat they were investigating a suspect case of PAM in a critically ill tike ; Wednesday , the University of Minnesota Medical Centerreportedlyconfirmed that it is plow 14 - year - old Hunter Boutain for the parasitic illness . Boutain ’s prospects are inadequate ; of the 133 instance of N. fowleri infection recorded between 1962 and 2014 , all but three have been fatal . land health functionary say he develop the condition shortly after swimming at Pope County ’s Lake Minnewaska , a popular summertime destination for beach - goers in west - central Minnesota .
That these infection are occurring now is not surprising . Incidences of PAM are rare , but the contagion commonly strikes in July or August , when water temperatures warm in unison with the summer weather condition , allowing N. fowleri populations to thrive . Above , a graphical record of PAM cases describe between 1962 and 2014 , graph by month of onset , illustrate this pattern with striking lucidness .
Now here ’s what is surprising about this case : its locating . Historically , N. fowleri infections in the U.S. have almost always hap in sultry southern states . But lately the parasite has been prone to wandering . Minnesota ’s first relative incidence of PAM was documented in 2010 , when a seven - year - honest-to-god girlfriend develop a fatal N. fowleri transmission after swimming in Lily Lake , a 36 - Accho consistence of water in the city of Stillwater . A second fateful case , this time in a nine - twelvemonth - old boy , was decipher to Lily Lake again in 2012 . Prior to the 2010 case , the illness had never been detected north of Missouri , hundreds of geographical mile south . It is not yet vindicated whether instances of N. fowleri infection are increase ; according to epidemiologist Jonathan Yoder , who tracks N. fowleri for the Centers for Disease Control ’s sectionalization of bloodsucking diseases , data on the leech do not indicate infections are becoming more common . They do , however , suggest the amoeba is prompt farther northerly , and that , as the satellite warms , N. fowleri could continue to expand its geographic reach .
All that being said , cases of N. fowleri infection remain quite rare , especially when you consider the copiousness of the amoeba itself . Yoder and his confrere have described the Einstein - eating parasite as “ omnipresent ” ; it is impossible to know exactly how many people float in lake inhabited by N. fowleri every year , but several million would be a sensible estimate . And yet , very few people are name with PAM : between zero and eight per year , in the U.S.
This disparity between exposure and infection in all likelihood speaks to the circuitous route the amoeba must take to get at the encephalon . The ameba makes its way to one ’s gray matter via the olfactive nerve , which it get at when water supply is forced up the nose . doctor conceive Annie Bahneman , the seven - year - old infect at Lily Lake in 2010 , was exposed to the parasite while practicing handstands in the weewee .
On one hand , this makes avoiding infection pretty unproblematic : If you find yourself in a fond body of fresh water supply , do n’t submerge your head , and , if you do , halt your nose or wear a nozzle snip . On the other , these measure are just as easily ignored , especially by kids , who are far and off the most common victim of N. fowleri infectionsin the U.S.
meet the generator at[email protected]and@rtg0nzalez . Top Photo : A microscopical sight of Naegleria fowleri reveals a 3 of feeding structures , twist into a macabre clown - face . range by D.T. John & T.B. Cole , Visuals inexhaustible , viaNatGeo .
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