When you hear this phrase “Brain-Eating Amoeba”, you may suddenly be reminded of a sci-fi horror movie with some bug munching through the squishy mass that is your brain. But sadly, such a bug does exist and it is known by the name Naegleria fowleri.

Youtube: How tiny Ameba eat your brain check it out

It is an amoeba and usually found in warm lakes, rivers, untreated water in swimming pools and spas, mud puddles and so forth. The infections by this parasite can be abrupt, called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.

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Bear with me. The bug usually is inhaled up your nose with water and then travels through neurons to the brain, where it eats up brain cells, causing the feared infection.

To Know More About the amoeba, check out this video:

Symptoms

Although the disease is very severe, the rate at which it occurs is actually very low. The parasite is not transmitted from one person to another. The common symptoms of the infection are a headache and fever.

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Episodes of vomiting and nausea are also seen. Later on, other symptoms including, a stiff neck, confusion, a lack of attention and hallucinations occurred.

Death usually occurs within two weeks after the symptoms appear. The course of treatment usually involves drugs such as Amphotericin B and Miltefosine. Despite these treatments, the chances of a cure are very low (about 5%).

Brain-eating Amoeba
Brain-eating Amoeba,

An interesting fact about this parasite is that it usually grows best in the higher temperatures during summer months. It, however, cannot survive in seawater.

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This amoeba actually feeds on bacteria, but once inside the nose, it starts destroying the nerve cells. According to the CDC, almost all the cases of Naegleria infection are fatal.

Check out the video which shows the fourth person to survive from the amoeba:

However, there have been five survivors to date in North America, including one in 1978, one in Mexico in 2003, two in 2013 and one in 2016. Kali Hardig, 12 in 2013 from Arkansas was the 3rd survivor of this deadly disease, while Zachary Renya was the fourth.

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In all these cases, it has been theorized that the actual strain of the parasite that caused the infection was less dangerous than usual. But in any case, the fact that these people survived this deadly disease is not less than a miracle in itself.