Brain-Eating Amoeba Most Likely Caused Nebraska Child's Death, Officials Say 51
An infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba most likely killed a child who swam in a Nebraska river over the weekend, health officials said Thursday. It would be the first such death in the state's history and the second in the Midwest this summer. From a report: The child, whose name was not released by officials, most likely contracted the infection, known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis, while swimming with family in a shallow part of the Elkhorn River in eastern Nebraska on Sunday, according to the Douglas County Health Department. At a news conference on Thursday, health officials said the typically fatal infection is caused by Naegleria fowleri, also known as brain-eating amoeba, and most likely led to the child's death.
Last month, a person in Missouri died because of the same amoeba infection, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The person had been swimming at the beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park in Iowa. Out of precaution, the Iowa Department of Public Health closed the lake's beach for about three weeks. The brain-eating amoebas, which are single-cell organisms, usually thrive in warm freshwater lakes, rivers, canals and ponds, though they can also be present in soil. They enter the body through the nose and then move into the brain. People usually become infected while swimming in lakes and rivers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infections from brain-eating amoeba are extremely rare: From 2012 to 2021, only 31 cases were reported in the U.S., according to the C.D.C.
Last month, a person in Missouri died because of the same amoeba infection, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The person had been swimming at the beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park in Iowa. Out of precaution, the Iowa Department of Public Health closed the lake's beach for about three weeks. The brain-eating amoebas, which are single-cell organisms, usually thrive in warm freshwater lakes, rivers, canals and ponds, though they can also be present in soil. They enter the body through the nose and then move into the brain. People usually become infected while swimming in lakes and rivers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infections from brain-eating amoeba are extremely rare: From 2012 to 2021, only 31 cases were reported in the U.S., according to the C.D.C.
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Nonsense. Only Pfizer vaccines will protect us. And we must mandate everyone get vaccinated, because $cience. I recommend making the unvaccinated wear yellow armbands whenever they leave their home, so we can avoid them.
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jesus christ are we gonna have to deal with this tired comment for the next two decades from you obstinate dummies? get the fuck over it or are you that dense to think something like this and a highly contagious respitory virus are in any way comparable
"hurr durr they're both illnesses! i am very smart!"
Re: Two weeks to flatten the curve! (Score:2)
Don't worry. These comments are proof we don't have two decades left.
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I prefer "A Mercola of morons."
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A Munson of Morons
Re: Two weeks to flatten the curve! (Score:2)
It's the new "one joke."
Re:Two weeks to flatten the curve! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh don't worry, there's no way a brain-eating amoeba could possibly hurt you.
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We need to shut everything down for 2 weeks to prevent this thing from spreading.
The only cure is Ivermectin. I suggest you take a lot of it. Like go to the local animal food shop, buy a tube and take twice the recommended dose just to stay safe.
Global warming (Score:2, Insightful)
We can expect a lot more of this now that global warming is here.
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No lakes or rivers....and no ocean with sharks and jelly fish.
I'll stick with a pool with chlorine, a life guard and a bar close by.
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What a little baby lol. Freshwater can be legit gross sometimes but seas and oceans are perfectly fine since this kind of shit doesn't live there.
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Re: Global warming (Score:3)
Ding ding ding. Virus survives in warm water... climate is warning up... not like this is a riddle.
This is the obvious anger I have with science. Not that it's all bullshit and propaganda, but rather that easily deduced conclusions take years to prove and any policy related to those conclusions will be more years of litigation.. This will go on so long, the backlog of court cases and scientific conclusions will be the largest when the world ends.
No worries though all the religious freaks talking about end t
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Amoebas are NOT virii...
Re: Global warming (Score:2)
Fair critique but everything else still is applicable.
Wonder if they could build a test for this (Score:3)
I wonder if there's any way there could be some kind of dunk test for this, like a strip you insert in a river or lake and it says if it's clear (or below a good threshold) of anything like this.
It seems though like it would just be a random thing wandering into a cloud of these, maybe not something you could really test for.
I have to say even though this is really rare, it greatly puts a damper on the idea of swimming in lakes and rivers... though at least if you keep your head out of the water you should be OK. Or maybe you should tell kids to wear nose-plugs to keep water out, since this gets to you through your nose?
A kind of odd-looking, though potentially helpful set of tips to avoid this is here [kylelewisa...reness.org], one of the things the mention is to avoid water above 80 degrees. Sad though as it's water above that temp that most really enjoy swimming in.
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Thank you for confirming that Wall Street stands today, on nothing but hype and bullshit.
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If anybody improperly capitalized on that, it would be massively illegal (market manipulation + insider trading) and easy to detect the bad actors. And those laws are enforced, as far as I know.
Re:Wonder if they could build a test for this (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah it definitely seems like the type of thing where you can easily swim in a warm lake 1000 times and come out fine 99.9% of the time. From my understanding you need all these conditions present:
- A consistently warm lake
- Amobea present in the lake soil
- Kicking up that soil to put the amoeba in the water
- Breathing the water up your nose up into your sinuses
- Be a child since the barrier between the sinus cavity and the brain where the nerves pass through is more porous in children and thats how the amoeba crawls up into the brain so they are far more subsceptible
It's like walking through a thunderstorm and expecting to get hit by lightning which is much more likely to happen by the numbers
Seems like a noseplug eliminates the risk pretty easily, as annoying as that is for kids but since this is like 100% fatal it's a big risk otherwise
Intersting point... (Score:2)
- Amobea present in the lake soil
- Kicking up that soil to put the amoeba in the water
Interesting point, I read that it could be present in the water or the soil, but didn't think that maybe any contamination might come from kicking up soil in the water.
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Yeah I think it's possible for the amobea to be in water and obivously they can live free swmming but from what i read they naturally live in the lake soil doing their ameoba things and kicking up the dirt increases the odds a lot.
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Do you have any evidence a noseplug would make any difference? The mouth and the nose are connected, after all.
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I mean I am not a doctor but I live in a hot state with a lot of lakes so I've tried to read on this (and it's kinda interesting) and apparently the key thing is that area of the skull where the nerves for your scent and nasal cavity pass through it into the brain, the amoeba literally crawls up those nerves to get to the brain and that area is up in there, like you dont just have to get water in your nose but breath some up it, so while im sure its possible for the water to get way up there through your mo
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It's cost/benefit though.
Yes there is a small likelyhood of this happening, but it's a 100% fatal illness if it does. The cost to prevent a rare but 100% fatal illness is a $1 noseplug and this is only when swimming in a lake that is very warm. Seems like a pretty simple no brainer.
Kids can choke sure but choking is easily treatable and your parents tell you "small bites" for that very reason.
I've never been in a bad car accident and yes I am 100% going to die someday but I still wear a seatbelt everytime
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like a strip you insert in a river or lake and it says if it's clear (or below a good threshold)
Well problem 1 would be there is no definitive "Safe threshold" for human exposure right? You just need perhaps 1 or 2 organisms to happen to get into the nose and encounter bacterium/other cells they can consume, And if the offending ameoba manage to reproduce before being consumed by some other competing protists or other organisms, there will be twice as many, then four times as many, then 8x, etc..
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It's way below the threashold for "things I should worry about" but I'm sure if it makes the news then there will be plenty of money spent on yet more tiger-repelling rocks.
Remind me again how many people died in car crashes on the way to the lake? How many people have drowned in it...?
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Better would be a cheap rapid multi-pathogen blood/mucus test. Instead of guessing at what the heck someone has, we should be testing for 99% of possible things simultaneously. In fact such a thing is possible today with, for example, nanopore sequencers combined with isothermal amplification using a collection of primers.
His name (Score:3, Informative)
was Robert Paulsen
His name was Robert Paulsen
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Good essay on the subject (Score:2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Thanks for the link - the video is very informative.
Its emphasis on the amoeba's need for warmth prompted a question: if the infection could be detected early enough, might putting the patient into medically-induced hypothermia kill the organism?
Think of the children! (Score:2)
Something must be done! I demand Congress pass legislation immediately banning all amoeba from lakes and rivers. Even one child death from these silent killers is too much.
Write your congress critter immediately and demand action now!
Wow That Kills Fast! (Score:2)
The kid swam on Sunday and died on Wednesday. Three days. The original press conference article (not the NYT article which is less informative) [klkntv.com] contain this interesting fact "It has a 97% fatality rate, and once infected, it is fast-moving, often causing death within ten days of exposure."
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Too bad we can't put these in the punchbowls of Republican fundraisers.
No, you'd need to mix it into their cocaine.
Kerosene Creek (Score:1)
It use to be standard advice to not put your head under, in our local hot rivers, but the youngsters don't seem to know about it these days...
Local Brain Eaters in my "Area"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
God's retribution (Score:2)
Like the flooding in Kentucky, the droughts in the midwest and down south, this is what you get when you deliberately ignore your little book and all its cute saying about loving your neighbor, not bearing false witness, not lying, and so on.
Bigly (Score:1)
I heard a group of Trump supporters were exposed, but the brainscans all came back negative.
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Lesson ... (Score:2)