A 50-year-old man died after returning from a trip to Thailand, according to South Korean police, who confirmed that he had contracted a “brain-eating amoeba.”
The “brain-eating amoeba” Naegleria fowleri has been associated to the death of a patient, marking the first case of the fatal condition in South Korea, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The 50 year old man who died after returning from Thailand was infected with Naegleria fowleri, which destroys human brains. He died on Tuesday last week, reports Yonhap news agency.
The KDCA stated in order to determine the exact cause of his demise, it had performed out genetic tests on three different bacteria that cause Naegleria fowleri. According to the testing, the man’s body had a gene that was 99.6% identical to one discovered in a meningitis case who had been reported abroad.
The KDCA urged locals to avoid swimming in the areas where the disease has spread despite claiming that the likelihood of Naegleria fowleri transmission from person to person is minimal. As of 2018, there have been 381 cases of Naegleria fowleri documented worldwide, including ones in the US, India, and Thailand.
Facts about Naegleria fowleri
The amoeba Naegleria fowleri typically found in warm freshwater ponds, lakes, rivers, canals, and lakes all around the world. When an amoeba enters the nose, it goes to the brain where it consumes brain tissue. The first known infection from the disease in the country, which was first reported in the Virginia, United States in 1937. Each year, only about three people in the United States become infected, but these infections are usually fatal.
Naegleria fowleri causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a brain infection that harms brain tissue. The brain swells as a result of the infection’s destruction of brain tissue. Early PAM symptoms and indications may resemble bacterial meningitis.
The first signs of PAM usually show up 5 days after infection, though they can start anywhere between 1 and 12 days after infection. Possible symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches, and fever. The worst symptoms that can appear later include seizures, hallucinations, seizures, stiff neck, confusion, and coma.
Although human-to-human transmission of Naegleria fowleri is impossible. As of 2018, there have been 381 cases of Naegleria fowleri recorded across the world, including in India, Thailand, the US, China, and Japan.
The disease advances quickly once symptoms appear and typically results in death within 5 days (but death can happen within 1 to 18 days). Over 97% of people die. There were 154 known afflicted people in the United States from 1962 to 2021, and just four of them have survived.
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