Are warming temperatures allowing a brain-eating amoeba to infest more northern waters?
A parasite commonly known as the “brain-eating amoeba” that causes a rare but deadly brain infection is being found in more northern areas of the U.S. as average temperatures rise, scientists have determined. Infection typically occurs when swimming or diving in warm freshwater lakes or rivers.
The water-borne parasite, Naegleria fowleri, enters the brain via the nose and causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which can be fatal 97% of the time.
A seven year-old girl contracted the disease in 2010 in Minnesota, 550 miles north of the previous northernmost recorded case. The Centers for Disease Control reports that the amoeba's range is moving northward at the rate of about eight miles a year.
The CDC reports that there have been no more than eight known PAM infections in the U.S. per year since the 1960s.
