US News

Brain-eating amoeba kills third victim

Courtney Nash

Courtney Nash (handout)

It’s a nightmarish serial killer smaller than a cereal crumb.

A 9-year-old Virginia boy has become the third person this summer to be killed by a brain-eating amoeba, a tiny but lethal creature straight out of a horror film.

The microscopic murderer thrives in warm, stagnant ponds of fresh water and invades people’s bodies by entering through a swimmer’s nasal passages.

Then, using the nervous system like a highway, naegleria fowleri makes its way into the brain and feeds on cerebral fluid like a tiny Pac-Man.

Its presence causes a rare, nearly incurable illness that quickly kills the warm-blooded host.

“It is so tragic for families,” Virginia state epidemiologist Dr. Keri Hall told The Post. “It’s important not to minimize how hard it is for the families to cope with the situation.”

The illness, called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, is nearly impossible to diagnose without an autopsy, Centers for Disease Control officials said yesterday.

Death comes painfully and quickly in as little as seven days and symptoms — including headache, fever, anorexia, vomiting, altered mental status, and coma — mimic bacterial meningitis and frequently lead doctors to misdiagnose the victim.

Hall said sometimes the organism can be spotted swimming in samples of brain fluid drawn from the victim’s spinal column.

The Virginia boy died on August 5, just a week after a visit to a fishing camp, according to reports, and is the second case to be discovered this month.

A 16-year-old Florida girl died last week of the illness and a Louisiana man died in June of the same disease.

Hall said swimmers should be aware of the risk, especially during periods of no rain and high temperatures and avoid swimming in stagnant or slow-moving bodies of water.

In 2008, the CDC reported that a review found 121 cases from 1937 through 2007, but only one survivor.

A 1982 report in the New England Journal of Medicine said a 9-year-old California girl was successfully treated after contracting the infection while swimming in hot springs in the San Bernardino National Forest.