Happy new year everyone and it is good to have you here again this year. I would love to know how your holidays went because for me, it was fun and I can keep talking about it for an entire day but in all, I was always careful because when health is compromised, fun is gone.
I went to a lot of places including the beach and talking about the beach, do you know that about 5 million people die from water related illnesses yearly? Well, while there are a lot of water related illnesses, I want to talk about one that lurks in various places including Warm freshwater, Geothermal water, pools in Recreational venues, Tap water, Industrial power plant discharge, soil, and even in your Water heaters. I will be discussing the case of Kali Harding (Arkansas), and Caleb Ziegelbaver.
The 12 year old Kali Harding one day in July of 2013 decided to go swimming with her friends at Willow springs water which has been in existence since 1928. She a and her friends enjoyed their adventure to the lake as they had fun times and they were able to splash water at themselves. They all went home but few days later, Kali Harding began to feel sick starting with a headache.
She thought it was just a flu so she decided to sleep it off with the expectations that it would subside but this wasn't the case. Her mother's attention was drawn to her daughter and she noticed that her eyes rolled inwards and knew there was a problem. Upon arriving at the hospital, the doctor diagnosed her condition as "The Death Sentence" and even advised her parents to prepare for the worst as she was said to be suffering from primary amebic meningoencephalitis.
The case of Caleb Ziegelbaverwas similar to that of Kali Harding. Caleb was a 13-year old boy who was swimming a the Port Charlotte beach on a family outing. Just like the case of Kali, he began to experience headaches a few days after swimming after which he began to develop high fever and began to lose energy as he became weak. He soon began to complain about neck pain and he began to hallucinate. It was at this point that his parents took him to the Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida and upon reaching the hospital the doctors diagnosed him with primary amebic meningoencephalitis.
People who have been afflicted with primary amebic meningoencephalitis usually die within 1 to 18 days after the symptoms appear and this is because the condition progresses very fast. While the water cannot be blamed, there is a creature in the water that causes this bedeviled condition and it is known as Naegleria fowleri also known as Brain Eating Amoeba. While there are many species of Naegleria, only the Fowleri specie causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis and most cases of this condition happens in the southwestern states of the United States.
The amoeba gets into the body through the nostrils and so, swimming and closing your mouth doesn't prevent it from entering into the body. While the Brain Eating Amoeba can be found almost everywhere, it cannot be found in salt waters as well as properly treated municipal water sources, and pools that are properly chlorinated.
When the water flows through the nostrils, the amoeba enters as an inactive cyst and they remain so at temperatures below 10 degrees celsius. At 25 degrees, the cyst undergo metamorphosis to become a trophozoite which is the feeding and reproduction stage. After the trophozoite stage, it goes to its flagellate stage where it grows a flagella and begin to go into the body.
The Amoeba finds its way to the skull through the olfactory nerves and bulb after which it goes to the frontal lobe. Once the Amoeba gets to the brain, it begins to eat up the brain cells since there are no bacteria to eat up in the brain. It feeds on the brain cells through a process known as Trogocytosis and this feeding leads to the condition "primary amebic meningoencephalitis". Scientists are still looking to find a way to treat this condition properly as it still has a mortality rate of 98% but this is said to be as a result of delayed diagnosis, lack of effective treatment and the complexities of delivering these treatment.
This case is rare with just around 400 cases as of 2021 but the survival rate of people with this condition is very low with just about 12 people surviving the condition. This disease is not noticed easily and can be misdiagnosed for bacterial or viral meningitis.
Post Reference
https://winknews.com/2023/08/21
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12545389
https://www.kark.com/news/health/arkansan
https://people.com/kali-hardig-brain-eating-amoeba-shares-story
https://www.cdc.gov/naegleria/about/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/about/amebic-meningitis.html
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24485-brain-eating-amoeba
https://whyy.org/segments/meet-a-survivor-of-a-rare-deadly-brain-eating-amoeba/
https://www.msdmanuals.com/home/infections/parasitic-infections
https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/primary-amebic-meningoencephalitis-pam
Image Reference
Image 1 || ASM.org || Microcosm
Image 2 || Picryl || Nfowleri lifecycle
Image 3 || Picryl || Naegleria fowleri lifecycle stages
It is cases like these, although extremely tragic, that console me whenever I realize that I cannot swim.
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