Doctors believe the man became infected after swimming in Lake Tiberias.
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Any news about an amoeba devouring a person’s brain sends shivers down the spine. This abomination can live in tap water (such cases are common in the USA), in the pool (there were mass deaths in Czechoslovakia), and in ponds and lakes. This time the amoeba attacked a 25-year-old Israeli who was swimming in Lake Tiberias. He is in intensive care, in critical condition. Only 5% of those whose brains have been invaded by Naegleria Fowler survive – this is the “official” name of the dangerous protozoan.
Israel’s Health Ministry said doctors diagnosed the patient with primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. It is accompanied by high fever, headache, sleep disturbances, vomiting, seizures and loss of consciousness. Symptoms of infection appear after 7 to 10 days.
Doctors believe the man became infected after swimming in Lake Tiberias (he was on holiday at Ai Beach).
Following the incident, the Ministry of Health ordered a check on the quality of the lake’s water. Inspectors took samples for laboratory testing.
This is not the first time that amoebic meningoencephalitis has been reported in Israel. Amoebic meningoencephalitis was first identified there in 2022 in a 36-year-old Israeli after swimming in a hot tub. He could not be saved.
To avoid infection with the brain-eating amoeba, doctors recommend not swimming in warm fresh water, especially in summer, and monitoring the proper chlorine levels in the pool. Infection occurs when Fowler’s naegleria enters the nose directly, then through the epithelium and the olfactory nerve enters the brain, so when swimming in bodies of water it is better to use nose clips and not rinse them with tap water.
Naegleria is not transmitted from person to person. If you drink water “with an amoeba”, it will die in the gastrointestinal tract.
Drinking water containing amoebas is not dangerous, as the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract destroy them.
Rospotrebnadzor said that no cases of amoebic meningoencephalitis have been reported in Russia, and that a total of 400 cases of the disease have been reported worldwide since the middle of the last century. The amoeba is most commonly found in the southern United States, India, Pakistan and the Pacific region.
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