It is a free-living amoeba known as "brain eater", as it produces a rare type of encephalitis, called amoebic meningoencephalitis. It is the only type of Naegleria that infects humans. It is commonly found in freshwater lakes, ponds, hot springs, pools, irrigation canals, and ponds in many parts of the world and feeds on bacteria.
It can also be found on land, but never in salty water such as the oceans.
The youngest, that is, children and adolescents, are the ones who often become the victims of the infection that this amoeba produces, by bathing in stagnant and infected waters.
The Naegleria fowleri, enters the body through the nose, when the person is diving or swimming. From there the amoeba passes to the brain, through the small holes in the human skull, where the nerves from the nose enter the brain.
Once Naegleria fowleri is inside the brain, the affected person begins to suffer from headaches and fever, which rapidly progresses to primary amoebic encephalitis or amoebic meningoencephalitis, which destroys brain tissue, causing inflammation of the brain, which produces the death of the patient in one or two weeks.
There are currently no effective treatments to treat a person affected by Naegleria fowleri. However, there have been a few cases of survivors, who were given early treatment with amphotericin.
Nor are there yet any rapid or standardized test methods to detect and / or quantify Naegleria fowleri in water. Also, the relationship between finding it in water and infections is not entirely clear.
What is true is that the presence of Naegleria fowleri is very common, while infections are rare. In addition, it has been proven that the infection caused by this amoeba is not spread from person to person.
The documented survival rate for Naegleria fowleri infection is 2%, with only 7 survivors of 300 registered cases, of which 128 belong to the United States, where they assure that the amoeba is established in the south of the country, although studies Recent reports have revealed that it is moving north, where infections are occurring, in places where there were no previously documented cases.
