In the warmth of a summer that should have held only ordinary joys, a teenager in central North Carolina now lies critically ill — struck by one of medicine's rarest and most unforgiving infections. Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic organism that drifts invisibly through warm freshwater lakes and rivers, found its way through nasal passage to brain, transforming a season of recreation into a race against time. Fewer than ten such cases emerge across the entire country in any given year, yet this family now carries the full weight of that statistical rarity. Health officials investigate the sour
North Carolina teen critically ill with rare brain-eating amoeba infection
A teenager is critically ill with a rare, potentially fatal brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri amoeba.