On September 16, 29-year-old American Fabrizio Stabile was mowing the lawn as usual with a lawnmower outside his home in Ventnor, New Jersey, as he had a severe headache.
The man felt so bad that after a few hours he could hardly speak coherently and did not get out of bed.
His mother, in a panic, called an ambulance and Fabrice was taken to the clinic, where he was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis.
However, he did not get better from the drugs, and the doctors later diagnosed him with amoebic meningitis.
The patient died five days later.
Amoeba meningitis is caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri, also called the brain-eating amoeba. Most often, infection occurs in water, but in order for the amoeba to enter the brain, it must not be swallowed with water, but inhaled through the nose.
Once in the nose, the amoeba makes its way to the brain along the olfactory nerve and there begins to multiply rapidly and vigorously, using brain cells as food.
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Moreover, such amoebas do not live in the oceans, but in the warm fresh water of lakes, rivers or hot springs. In Fabrizio's case, it is suspected that he contracted this deadly amoeba while swimming in a pool at the BSR Cable Park Surf Resort in Waco, Texas.
The resort's pools are currently closed and water testing is underway.
If this amoeba enters the human brain, then in 98% of cases it cannot be saved in any way and the outcome is fatal. In the United States, cases of brain-eating amoeba infections are extremely rare, and each of them resonates strongly. Over the past 55 years, there have been 143 such cases in the states.
