The powerful Atlantic cyclone Irma, which recently struck Florida, brought a terrible infection to America - Fowler's Negleria, also known as the brain-eating amoeba.
These unicellular organisms, found in the local warm fresh water bodies, pose a huge danger to people. During bathing or contact with contaminated water, the parasites enter the nose, from where they make their way along the olfactory nerve to the brain, eventually infecting the entire human nervous system.
Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis caused by these organisms is usually fatal. Science knows only one case when a patient was cured of this disease. This happened in 2012 with a 5 month old Iranian boy. However, in general, any person after such an infection dies within 24 days. Before that, he experiences dizziness, headache, hallucinations, impaired motility, seizures. Loss of hearing, sight and smell, and so on are also possible.
In the video below, Dr. Manny Alvarez tells the journalist what happened. According to the specialist, 143 cases of infection of Florida residents with a "brain-eating amoeba" have already been recorded.
The worst thing, the scientist claims, is that the mortality rate from primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is about 99 percent, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to save the infected. In addition, doctors very often do not diagnose this ailment immediately, believing that the patient is sick with something else. When doctors finally realize what the matter is, the parasite has already spread throughout the human nervous system, and antibiotics in this case become simply useless.