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RJF
09-27-2007, 09:59 PM
:eek:

Arizona Teen Becomes Sixth Victim This Year of Brain-Eating Amoeba
Thursday , September 27, 2007

PHOENIX —

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 the balmy shallows of 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-born 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 live in lake bottoms, grazing off 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 attacked rarely survive, Beach said.

"Usually, from initial exposure it's fatal within two weeks," Beach said.

Researchers still have much to learn about Naegleria, Beach said. For example, it seems that children are more likely to get infected, and boys are infected more often than girls. Experts don't know why.

"Boys tend to have more boisterous activities [in water], but we're not clear," he 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.

Lake Havasu City officials also are discussing how to deal with rare amoeba attacks in the wake of Aaron Evans' death. "Some folks think we should be putting up signs. Some people think we should close the lake," city spokesman Charlie Cassens said. City leaders haven't yet decided what to do.

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 simply plug your nose when swimming or diving in fresh water.

"You'd have to have water going way up in your nose to begin with" to be infected, he said.

David Evans has tried to learn as much as possible about amoebas during the past month. But it still doesn't make much sense. The questions keep swirling around his head. Why now? His family has gone to Lake Havasu countless times without a problem. Have people always been in danger? Did city officials know about amoebas? Can they do anything to kill them off?

"It's been pretty heavy-duty," he said.

Evans lives within eyesight of Lake Havasu, a bulging strip of the Colorado River that separates Arizona from California. Temperatures hover in the triple digits all summer, and like almost everyone else, the Evans family looks to the lake to cool off.

On Sept. 8, he brought Aaron, his two other children and his parents to Lake Havasu to celebrate his birthday. They ate sandwiches and spent a few hours splashing around one of the beaches.

"For a week, everything was fine," he said.

Then Aaron got the headache that wouldn't go away. Evans took him to the hospital, and doctors thought his son was suffering from meningitis. Aaron was rushed to another hospital in Las Vegas.

Evans tried to reassure his son, but he had no idea what was wrong. On Sept. 17, Aaron stopped breathing as David held him in his arms.

"He was brain dead," David said. Only later did doctors realize the boy had been infected with Naegleria.

"My kids won't ever swim on Lake Havasu again."

DRavenS13
09-27-2007, 10:06 PM
i can see where they're coming from, being scared of this thing and all, but millions of people get into the water every year, and there's only a handful of cases like this. I just don't see why the media will use scare tactics for a good story. If everyone listened to everything the news reports, no one would ever leave their house, for fear of death.

I feel bad for that family, though. It must be hard to lose a child so quickly with no warning.

Unholy S14
09-27-2007, 10:11 PM
damn thats horrible

d*star180
09-27-2007, 10:12 PM
Thats sad to hear.
A bit scary also.
Guess ill be the kid wearing nerdy noseplugs from now on.....

ramblux
09-27-2007, 10:16 PM
i can see where they're coming from, being scared of this thing and all, but millions of people get into the water every year, and there's only a handful of cases like this. I just don't see why the media will use scare tactics for a good story. If everyone listened to everything the news reports, no one would ever leave their house, for fear of death.

I feel bad for that family, though. It must be hard to lose a child so quickly with no warning.

Yeah, but they should have known better than to swim in standing water. That's the dirtiest shit there is -- full of bacteria.

DRavenS13
09-27-2007, 10:20 PM
I'm just soulless I guess. I hear about people dying, and I either laugh at why they died, or I shrug it off as pure stupidity. Sometimes both. This case, it was stupid to swim in water that small woodland creatures won't swim in or drink.

qwikspool
09-27-2007, 10:35 PM
sad to hear about the boy. lot of people go swimming out there. i guess media is just exagerating.

ixfxi
09-27-2007, 10:39 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d2/Super_Metroid_Mother_Brain_tank.png/180px-Super_Metroid_Mother_Brain_tank.png

maybe mother brain has something to do with it?

never know, metroid man..... that shit is REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL

illvialuver
09-28-2007, 12:29 AM
yeah thats too bad. its sad when kids die in the parents arms.

RJF always posts the craziest news. good thing we swim in the clean waters of the pacific (hahahah lbc and santa monica clean????)

DRavenS13
09-28-2007, 01:08 AM
Yea, we'll only get eaten by sharks and stung by jellyfish.

Farzam
09-28-2007, 01:17 AM
My heart just sank

azndoc
09-28-2007, 01:25 AM
Damn now we're all emo.

Poor little boy. I hate to be that father right now.

Telling your son that everything is going to be okay and then he dies.

No parent should ever have to bury their child.

thatdrifterguy
09-28-2007, 10:05 PM
sounds like the beginning of a zombie infection

sorry for the kid though. i hope we dont have any of those amoebas here in guam. theres a lot of standing water here

OurOnePassion
09-28-2007, 10:19 PM
I jumped in the pool and got water way up my nose... just yesterday, it was!:bite: Now I'll be all paranoid. [not really]


That crap is crazy though... Sucks that it kinda sneaks up on you like that. I hope that's the last case we'll ever hear about.

DRavenS13
09-28-2007, 10:52 PM
As long as there's people dumb enough to go swimming and inhale stinky, bacteria-ridden standing water, we haven't heard the last of the evil amoeba.