Monday December 26, 2022 | 9:17 p.m.
The South Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday the first death caused by Naegleria fowleri, popularly known as “brain-eating ambeba.”
The deceased patient was 50 years old and a South Korean national. The man had returned on December 10 from a stay in Thailand, where he had been for four months. The next day he was admitted to a hospital, but he died on Wednesday, December 21, according to what the newspaper published. The Korea Herald.
After the genetic tests carried out after his death, it was confirmed that the pathogen he carried was 99.6% similar to that of a foreign meningitis patient affected by the “brain-eating amoeba”.
This is the first known infection detected in South Korea by this disease, which was first reported in Virginia, United States, in 1937.
Naegleria fowleri is a single-celled organism that lives on land and in warm waters such as springs, lakes, and rivers throughout the world. The amoeba enters the body by inhalation, through the nose, and travels to the brain.
The first symptoms are headache, fever, nausea and vomiting. When the disease is more advanced, it causes headaches, fever, vomiting and a stiff neck. The incubation period is between two and 15 days.
Although contagion between humans is impossible, the Agency recommended not bathing in the regions and neighborhoods where it has already been detected. In any case, the risk of contagion is low.
“We recommend avoiding bathing and water leisure activities in areas where cases have been detected,” said the director of the South Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention, Jee Young Mee, in a statement.
In 2018, 381 cases of Naegleria fowleri were reported worldwide, many of which occurred in countries such as India, Thailand, the United States, China, and Japan. In the United States, the mortality rate was reported to be 97% in 2021 (154 cases).
