Officials confirmed the death of a young woman from Central California due to infection from a very rare brain-eating amoeba.
According to CBS Sacramento, the 21-year-old victim from Bishop in Inyo County woke up from a nap on June 16 with headache and later started vomiting. A day after and with no improvement in her condition, she was admitted to Northern Inyo Hospital. She was initially diagnosed with meningitis, but her condition only worsened. She was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, but to no avail until she died.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) diagnosed her as infected by Naegleria fowleri, more popularly known as brain-eating amoeba.
There were no clear indications on how the woman acquired the amoeba. But this amoeba invades the body through the nose or mouth, while in the water (particularly from contaminated ones). When it gets into the brain, it starts eating tissues until the inflicted individual dies.
County health officials believed that the patient acquired the amoeba on a private property, thus, they ruled out any possibilities of contamination to the public. CDC also points out that it is not communicable and cannot be acquired by drinking contaminated water.
While cases of brain eating amoebas are very rear, less than 10 every year, the chances of death is almost 100%. Patients usually die five days after the onset of the symptoms, which include headache, fever, nausea or vomiting.
"The amoeba moves to the brain along a nerve in the patient's nose then wiggles through a bony plate in the skull called the cribiform plate. From there, it has access to the patient's brain, which it begins to destroy," a report by WPIX details.
The CDC reports that there were only 133 cases of Naegleria fowleri infection since 1962, seven of which were from California and although only three patients survived.
