South Korea confirms first case of brain-eating amoeba infection

The amoeba Naegleria Fowleri was found during the autopsy of a South Korean citizen who died of meningitis. Before his death, he spent several months in Thailand. Rospotrebnadzor noted,

In South Korea, the first case of infection with an amoeba of the Naegleria Fowleri species has been identified, which can enter the human brain and cause severe damage to the nervous system, Koreabiomed reports citing the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The KDCA reported Monday that it has detected Naegleria Fowleri in the country [South Korea] for the first time in a person who died of meningitis after returning from an extended stay abroad.

According to the agency, the deceased was in Thailand for four months and returned to South Korea on December 10. The man had headaches, fever, vomiting, speech dysfunction and other symptoms and died in hospital 11 days after returning home. After additional tests, doctors confirmed that he was infected with Fowler's amoeba.

Koreabiomed notes that cases of Fowler's amoeba are few each year and that human-to-human transmission of the parasite is not possible.

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The amoeba Naegleria Fowleri is a single-celled protozoan from the Vahlkampfiidae family. The species is named after the Australian physician Malcolm Fowler, who discovered and described it in 1960. These small amoeba live in fresh water at a temperature of 25-30 degrees. When it enters the human body, the parasite can cause primary amoebic meningoencephalitis that affects the nervous system.

As explained to RIA Novosti by the head of the Yekaterinburg Research Institute of Viral Infections of the Federal Budgetary Institution "SSC VB" Vector "of Rospotrebnadzor, Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Semenov, not a single infection with Fowler's amoeba has yet been detected in Russia.

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The specialist clarified that infection occurs during swimming, especially when a person dives feet first and does not close his nose. With a current of water, an amoeba can get there, cling to the olfactory nerve and, eating nervous tissue, move towards the brain.

According to the scientist, over the past 60 years, about 400 cases of amoebic meningoencephalitis have been registered in the world, 150 of them in the United States . 97% of amoeba-infected patients died, Semyonov said.