Published on
Updated
Reading 2 mins.
When entering through the nose, this amoeba literally eats the brain of its victim. Although it is a very rare disease, it is feared because it mainly attacks young people and kills them in 95% of cases. The most recent case was reported on March 2, 2023 in Florida in the United States.
Among the different known species of amoebas, Naegleria fowleri is particularly feared because it can enter through the nose during a swim, cross the mucous membrane and go up very quickly through the olfactory nerve to the brain. In 5 to 10 days, it literally eats the brain of its victim, even before the diagnosis and therefore a treatment can be made.
An American victim of this amoeba
In Florida, a woman was infected with the amoeba Naegleria fowleri after rinsing her sinuses with tap water. The woman died on March 2, 2023, due to infection from this “moss-eating amoeba”. brain“Report our colleagues from CNN . Contamination by remains very rare but this time it is taken very seriously by the health authorities.
“An epidemiological investigation is underway to understand the unique circumstances of this infection“explains the press secretary of the health department. This infection probably resulted from”sinus flushing practices using tap water“. It is therefore recommended that the American public do not use potable tap water to make sinus rinsing solutions. The water can instead be drunk, because the amoebae Naegleria fowleri are destroyed by stomach acid of the stomach.
A devastating disease that kills in a few days
Naegleria fowleri is a protozoan of the amoebae family. If this germ has been known for many years, the first cases of acute primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (AEM) in humans date from 1962. This AEM results from the invasion of the brain by N fowleri, which causes a very serious and lightning inflammation by reaction of the immune system. The person affected very quickly presents signs that seem trivial at first, such as loss of smell or taste. But very quickly hallucinations, convulsions and a comatose state lead to death in almost all cases because everything happens in a few days, so that diagnosis and treatment come too late. Only a few people could be saved thanks to the administration of amphotericin B, an antibiotic effective against N fowleri when administered on time.
An organism found especially in warm or stagnant water
The presence of N fowleri is detected mainly in warm fresh water, in tropical regions or in stagnant water. But it has also been found in swimming pools and even in running water. However, it is not known what the number of germs present is according to the characteristics of the water because the counts vary enormously according to the samples.
A germ and little-known risks
We also do not know how to explain its relatively common presence and the rarity of cases reported so far: just over 310 worldwide, including 145 in the United States between 1962 and 2018 and only 1 case in France in a young boy. , in Guadeloupe. In addition, some very limited but worrying outbreaks of epidemics have been reported, such as in Pakistan in 2012, where N fowleri had caused a dozen victims in Karachi in a few months.
It should be specified that N fowleri does not cause infection when passed through the mouth. In France, ANSES (National Agency for Health Safety, Food, Environment, Work) has issued recommendations in 2013 about this disease and its prevention.