US teenager struggles between life and death after brain-eating amoeba infection

There naegleria fowleribetter known as “brain eating amoeba”, attacks again. Caleb Z., a teenager from Port Charlotte (Florida, USA), has been hospitalized for days at the Children’s Hospital Golisano after contracting an infection so severe that in 75% of cases, death from fulminant primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.

The 13-year-old started complaining of sudden headaches and hallucinations in early July, and the diagnosis was almost immediate: after being escorted to the ER, doctors told his parents that a rare brain-eating amoeba had entered the hospital. through your nose and infecting your brain. Since then the situation has gotten worse day by day and today Caleb he is fighting between life and death.

The precedent: the death of 13-year-old Tanner Lake Wall

Caleb Z’s case is reminiscent of Tanner Lake Wall, a 13-year-old Florida boy who died two years ago of a brain-eating amoeba that entered his nose after swimming in a lake during summer camp. Two days later, the boy began to experience nausea, headache, and a stiff neck, so his condition suddenly worsened, until he died.

What is a brain-eating amoeba

The brain-eating amoeba got its name not by chance, but because of the devastating effects it has on the human brain, where it is capable of triggering a powerful infection that affects the central nervous system until death from primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. Its real name is Naegleria fowleri and it is a flagellated amoeboid with a diameter of 30-32 µm. Equipped with mouths that form in the cell’s body to swallow what it feeds on, Naegleria fowleri sometimes becomes cannibalistic and is capable of withstanding temperatures of up to 45 degrees.

Symptoms that should lead to suspicion of infection, for example after ingestion, are high fever, nausea, headache, vomiting followed by convulsions, hallucinations, coma and death in the most severe cases.