Female Teen Dies After Contracting Brain-Eating Amoeba While Rafting in NC
GILLIAN MOHNEY
Updated 15 mins ago
A young woman died this week in Ohio after being infected by Naegleria fowleri, commonly called a brain-eating amoeba.
Officials from the Franklin County Public Health Department confirmed that the 18-year-old died from "amebic meningoencephalitis," where the covering around the brain and spinal cord swells because of the infection from the amoeba.
The Franklin County resident was on a white-water rafting trip in North Carolina when officials believe she contracted the amoeba infection, before dying Sunday. Naegleria fowleri is a naturally occurring organism that lives in freshwater throughout the United States. While harmless if ingested, the organisms can be fatal if they travel through the nasal cavity to the brain.
"The deceased's only known underwater exposure was believed to be when riding in a raft with several others that overturned at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte," according to a statement from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
There are zero to eight infections in this country from parasitic amoebas each year and nearly all are fatal, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention advises people to take steps to avoid getting water up their nose when out in fresh water lakes or ponds. Swimmers can keep their head above water, use nose clips, or hold their nose shut when going underwater.
In rare cases, people can become infected if they use contaminated tap water when they use sinus rinsing devices. The CDC advises people to either filter or boil water before using the devices. The CDC says that symptoms start one to nine days (with a median of five) after swimming or other nasal exposure to Naegleria-containing water and die one to 18 days (also with a median of five) after symptoms begin. There is no known cure.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, explained in an interview last summer that officials can't screen entire bodies of water for the organism.
"The amoeba are in small numbers everywhere," Schaffner said. "They go hibernate in the wintertime. They're part of natural environment."
Schaffner also pointed out that cases are extremely rare and people shouldn't fear going to freshwater lakes or feel they should swim only into the ocean or chlorinated pools.