Sensationally billed as a "Brain-Eating Amoeba,"
Naegleria fowleri has been identified as the cause of Aaron Evans's death. According to a
story
appearing on KPHO-Phoenix's website, the Lake Havesu native "has become
the sixth victim to die nationwide this year of a microscopic organism
that attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way
to the brain."
According to Barnett Gibbs,
a doctor writing for eMedicine.com, "[e]arly diagnosis, treatment, and
aggressive supportive care hold the only chance for patient survival" of
primary amebic meningoencephalitis, the disease caused by
N fowleri.
Even so, despite having been discovered nearly fifty years ago in
Australia, "[f]ew people have survived PAM, and no standard treatment
regimen has been developed" for victims of the disease.
At least
Jaws was visible.
Comments