NAEGLARIA FOWLERI: THE BRAIN EATING AMOEBA?
Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a devastating yet rare hemorrhagic infection of the brain caused by Naeglaria Fowleri, the only know amoeba to infect humans. PAM is associated with a rapid onset even in healthy individuals, who have been swimming in freshwater such as swimming pools, lakes and streams. For this reason, it has the potential to be an outbreak in New Zealand. Naeglaria Fowleri is only able to infect individuals through entering the navel passages, from here they attach to the nasal mucosa, which allows the amoeba to travel through cribriform plate using the olfactory nerves, resulting in access to the frontal lobe. The result of which is a sudden onset of bi-frontal or …show more content…
Even though PAM is highly volatile and extremely dangerous, Cases of the disease are very rare, but nearly always clustered therefore any new cases of PAM would be considered an outbreak seeing that events are so rare. More importantly evidence shows that case of PAM tend to effect individuals within a small geographical rangeThe Naeglaria Fowleri is the causational agent behind PAM. The amoeba belongs to the genus Naeglaria a group of free-living ameboflagellate and is relatives of several other species(1). However, only Naeglaria Fowleri is associated with Human illness. The life cycle of the agent has three key stages firstly; the trophozoites stage is a vegetative like stage that measures to around 10-20 µm in diameter. This stage is specifically important, because this is the only stage that allows the ameba to reproduce as well as feeding on bacteria, yeast cells and other cellular debris.
The secondly stage of Naeglaria Fowleri life cycle is called the ameboflagellate stage, which refers to a temporary stage when the ameba does not need to feed and reproduce. During this stage, the ameba develops two flagella that allows it to exhibit rapid movement. Interestingly, the amoeba is capable of reverting to its first stage within only twenty-four hours. The final stage of the amoeba’s life cycle is called the cyst form; …show more content…
The main way that PAM is diagnosed is with Cerebrospinal fluid analysis; this is because amoebae use this as means of getting around the brain. The issue with this is that it is a highly intrusive measure and actually puts individuals at more risk and has shown to be highly unsuccessful as only 27% of patients who used this method were diagnosed before death. Another method is to use of Magnetic resonant machines (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) to provide images of damages of the brain in order to identify abnormal findings, which are areas that show hemorrhages, necrosis, and decreases in the size of ventricles. Interestingly the results for this method are also unsuccessful as it can only be used for assessing late stage cases. Meaning that the key issue with relying purely on diagnosis is that primary amebic meningoencephalitis is an infection that progresses very rapidly, and is always nearly fatal , especially seeing that it is incredibly had to diagnose seeing that its symptoms such as coughing and a stiff neck are very easily confused with other
Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a devastating yet rare hemorrhagic infection of the brain caused by Naeglaria Fowleri, the only know amoeba to infect humans. PAM is associated with a rapid onset even in healthy individuals, who have been swimming in freshwater such as swimming pools, lakes and streams. For this reason, it has the potential to be an outbreak in New Zealand. Naeglaria Fowleri is only able to infect individuals through entering the navel passages, from here they attach to the nasal mucosa, which allows the amoeba to travel through cribriform plate using the olfactory nerves, resulting in access to the frontal lobe. The result of which is a sudden onset of bi-frontal or …show more content…
Even though PAM is highly volatile and extremely dangerous, Cases of the disease are very rare, but nearly always clustered therefore any new cases of PAM would be considered an outbreak seeing that events are so rare. More importantly evidence shows that case of PAM tend to effect individuals within a small geographical rangeThe Naeglaria Fowleri is the causational agent behind PAM. The amoeba belongs to the genus Naeglaria a group of free-living ameboflagellate and is relatives of several other species(1). However, only Naeglaria Fowleri is associated with Human illness. The life cycle of the agent has three key stages firstly; the trophozoites stage is a vegetative like stage that measures to around 10-20 µm in diameter. This stage is specifically important, because this is the only stage that allows the ameba to reproduce as well as feeding on bacteria, yeast cells and other cellular debris.
The secondly stage of Naeglaria Fowleri life cycle is called the ameboflagellate stage, which refers to a temporary stage when the ameba does not need to feed and reproduce. During this stage, the ameba develops two flagella that allows it to exhibit rapid movement. Interestingly, the amoeba is capable of reverting to its first stage within only twenty-four hours. The final stage of the amoeba’s life cycle is called the cyst form; …show more content…
The main way that PAM is diagnosed is with Cerebrospinal fluid analysis; this is because amoebae use this as means of getting around the brain. The issue with this is that it is a highly intrusive measure and actually puts individuals at more risk and has shown to be highly unsuccessful as only 27% of patients who used this method were diagnosed before death. Another method is to use of Magnetic resonant machines (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) to provide images of damages of the brain in order to identify abnormal findings, which are areas that show hemorrhages, necrosis, and decreases in the size of ventricles. Interestingly the results for this method are also unsuccessful as it can only be used for assessing late stage cases. Meaning that the key issue with relying purely on diagnosis is that primary amebic meningoencephalitis is an infection that progresses very rapidly, and is always nearly fatal , especially seeing that it is incredibly had to diagnose seeing that its symptoms such as coughing and a stiff neck are very easily confused with other