A Nevada boy has died after he was contaminated with a uncommon brain-eating amoeba that he might have been uncovered to at Lake Mead, state well being officers introduced Wednesday.
The boy, described as a Clark county resident beneath the age of 18, died from Naegleria fowleri, the Southern Nevada Well being District mentioned in a information launch.
The well being district mentioned the kid might have been uncovered on the Arizona aspect of Lake Mead, which straddles the Nevada border, at the start of October and he started to develop signs “roughly per week later.”
NBC Information has reached out to park officers for remark.
Naegleria fowleri is a “free-living microscopic” amoeba generally present in heat freshwater — corresponding to lakes and rivers — or, extra not often, in inadequately chlorinated swimming swimming pools or heated and contaminated faucet water, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
The CDC notified the Well being District that Naegleria fowleri was confirmed as the reason for the affected person’s sickness.
The amoeba infects individuals by “getting into the physique by the nostril and touring to the mind,” the Southern Nevada Well being District mentioned. “The an infection is extraordinarily uncommon, and virtually at all times deadly.”
The information launch defined how the amoeba impacts the physique. The amoeba an infection causes major amebic meningoencephalitis, a mind an infection with signs of headache, fever, nausea or vomiting and progresses to a stiff neck, seizures, and coma and might result in loss of life. Signs normally start about 5 days after an infection.
“My condolences exit to the household of this younger man,” District Well being Officer Dr. Fermin Leguen mentioned in a press release. “Whereas I wish to reassure the general public that such a an infection is an especially uncommon prevalence, I do know this brings no consolation to his household and pals at the moment.”
The CDC recommends avoiding leaping or diving into our bodies of heat recent water in the course of the summer time, to carry one’s nostril shut or hold one’s head above water in heat recent water and to keep away from placing one’s head underwater in scorching springs or different untreated geothermal waters to keep away from contracting the organism.
