Parasites kill Lake Havasu teen

It seemed like a headache, nothing more. But when pain killers and a trip to the emergency room didn’t fix Aaron Evans, the 14-year-old asked his dad if he was going to die.

“No, no,” David Evans remembers saying. “We didn’t know. And here I am: I come home and I’m burying him.”

What was bothering Aaron was an amoeba, a microscopic organism called Naegleria fowleri that attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way to the brain. The doctors said he probably picked it up a week before while swimming in Lake Havasu.

Such attacks are extremely rare, though some health officials have put their communities on high alert, telling people to stay away from warm, standing water.

“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational water-borne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

According to the CDC, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials say they’ve noticed a spike in cases, with six Naegleria-related cases so far — all of them fatal.

Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria has been found almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even some swimming pools. Still, the CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.

The amoeba typically lives in lake bottoms, grazing on algae and bacteria in the sediment. Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a cannonball off a cliff — the amoeba can latch onto the person’s olfactory nerve.

The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up to the brain.

People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers, Beach said. In the later stages, they’ll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes.

Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. Some drugs have been effective stopping the amoeba in lab experiments, but people who have been infected rarely survive, Beach said.

“Usually, from initial exposure it’s fatal within two weeks,” Beach said.

In addition to the Arizona case, health officials reported two cases in Texas and three more in central Florida this year.

In response, central Florida authorities started an amoeba telephone hot line advising people to avoid warm, standing water, or any areas with obvious algae blooms.

Texas health officials also have issued news releases about the dangers of amoeba attacks and to be cautious around water.

People “seem to think that everything can be made safe, including any river, any creek, but that’s just not the case,” said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Beach warned that people shouldn’t panic about the dangers of brain-eating amoeba. Infections are extremely rare when compared with the number of times a year people come into contact with water. And there have been occasional years during the past two decades that experts noticed a similar spike in infections.

The easiest way to prevent infection, Beach said, is to plug your nose when swimming or diving in fresh water.

Anatomy of a killer

The culprit: A species of amoeba known as Naegleria fowleri is found around the world in water and soil. In rare cases, they can enter the nasal cavity of people swimming in water where the amoeba lives and will eat away the person’s brain tissue.

Danger: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials say they’ve noticed a spike in infections, with six Naegleria-related cases so far — all of them fatal.

Prevention: Health experts say people should stay away from warm, standing water. If they go swimming in such places, people should wear nose clips.