It's a very unpleasant organism that enters through your nose while swimming -- or, in the case of contaminated water, when you're bathing in what you thought was perfectly safe tap water.
As we reported earlier, authorities in St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana are scrambling to deal with the outbreak of a brain-eating amoeba that has been found in drinking water. But just what is this organism, and what is it capable of? As it turns out, it’s definitely not something you want to contract.
The amoeba, formally named Naegleri fowleri, is not an unheard of ailment, but in most cases it is contracted by swimmers who get water in their nose, allowing it an avenue to make its way to your brain and wreak havoc. And it’s a deadly enough organism that authorities in Louisiana are conducting a “chlorine burn” to rid the water supply of it. A chlorine burn is the increasing of chlorine levels past what this organism can bear, according to Examiner.com.
Naegleria fowleri is found in warm, fresh water, and never in salt water. This microscopic organism causes an infection called amebic meningoencephalitis. This can only be contract by people who accidentally ingest water through their noses, usually while swimming. Merely consuming water that contains the amoeba won’t cause you to contract the illness, fortunately.
Once it gets inside the body, it heads for the brain. When this happens, the victim is in trouble, and very often faces death. Some of the first symptoms of PAM include fever, loss of appetite, headache, vomiting, seizures, coma, and, in many cases, death. Many of the early symptoms are common with a lot of other ailments, and very much resemble that of viral meningitis, meaning that it’s not always easy to diagnose if you have it, especially since it is a fairly rare ailment.
The amoeba was first discovered by in 1965 in Australia.
