In the waning heat of summer, a teenager in central North Carolina has been brought to the edge of life by one of medicine's most unforgiving adversaries — a microscopic amoeba that travels through warm freshwater and into the brain, leaving almost no survivors in its wake. Naegleria fowleri does not discriminate, does not spread between people, and does not announce itself until it is already destroying tissue; it simply waits in the water for a moment of ordinary joy — a swim, a dive, a child at play. With fewer than ten Americans infected each year and only four survivors recorded since 196
N.C. Teen Critically Ill With Rare Brain-Eating Amoeba Infection
A teenager is critically ill with a typically fatal brain infection; an 8-year-old girl in Louisiana recently died from the same infection.