Kerala Health Department warns against bathing in stagnant ponds amid amoebic meningoencephalitis concerns

Kerala's Health Department has told residents not to bathe, swim, or even wash their faces in unclean ponds, stagnant water bodies, or water that has collected in rock crevices. The warning follows concerns over amoebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection, and it arrives as school is out and children are more likely to head for exactly that kind of water.

The infection, known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) or amoebic fever, is caused by Naegleria fowleri. Contaminated water is more likely to harbour the organism. According to the advisory, it can reach the brain through tiny openings in the thin membrane separating the nose from the brain, or through perforations in the eardrum. The article notes that Kerala has repeatedly seen cases among people of different ages, though it gives no figures for cases or deaths.

Early symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, pain or difficulty moving the neck or back, and back pain. Later stages can bring seizures, fainting, and disoriented or incoherent speech. The advisory's FAQ adds motor deficit and unresponsiveness on one side of the body to the commonly noticed signs, while stressing that symptoms are not uniform from person to person.

The guidance on what to do is plain. If a fever does not subside even after medication, or if any of these symptoms appear, specialist medical attention should be sought immediately. Dr T V Rosh, the Palakkad District Medical Officer, stressed one further step: if the patient has recently bathed or swum in a pond or similar water body, the doctor must be told.

The department has also directed swimming pools to chlorinate scientifically. Pools are to be fully drained and refilled once a week. Their sides and floors must be scrubbed with a brush, cleaned, and dried properly, and filters cleaned regularly. Freshly filled water should be used only after chlorination, at the prescribed ratio of 5 grams of bleaching powder per 1,000 litres.

Further preventive measures are listed. Swimmers and those learning to swim should wear nose clips. Water in theme parks and pools must be chlorinated and kept hygienic. Drinking water storage systems and water tankers should be chlorinated at regular intervals, and chlorine in distribution networks should be held at 0.5 mg per litre. Wells should be chlorinated at fixed intervals as health workers advise, and all water sources kept free of pollution.

The FAQ also addresses who is vulnerable. Doctors cited in it say people with genetically wide nasal turbinates, the structures inside the nose that filter and warm air, can be affected. In its trophozoite form, the amoeba can travel along the olfactory nerve to the brain. People with weak immune systems, those who have had brain surgery, and those with developing nasal turbinates are also named as susceptible.

On why cases may be rising, many healthcare experts, the article says, point to climate change in Kerala, since lukewarm water is an ideal habitat for the dangerous amoeba. That is presented as an expert opinion rather than an established finding. For now the practical advice for the summer holidays is to avoid stagnant water and to treat any persistent fever with urgency.