Infection At 'MyPoopBeach'?It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases, three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona.
After doing more tests, doctors said Aaron probably picked up the amoeba a week before while swimming in the balmy shallows of Lake Havasu, a popular man-made lake on the Colorado River between Arizona and California.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, "basically feeding on the brain cells," Beach said. "Usually, from initial exposure it's fatal within two weeks," he said.
"For a week, everything was fine," Evans said. Then Aaron got the headache that wouldn't go away. At the hospital, doctors first suspected meningitis. Aaron was rushed to another hospital in Las Vegas.
On Sept. 17, Aaron stopped breathing as his father held him in his arms. "He was brain dead," Evans said. Only later did doctors and the CDC determine that the boy had been infected with Naegleria.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/weird_news/20070929_ap_6diefrombraineatingamoebainlakes.html
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