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Las Vegas teenager dies of brain-eating amoeba as experts warn of panic | Las Vegas

Here’s what experts say about teenage deaths: Las Vegas A rare brain-eating amoeba region should prompt caution, not panic, among people in freshwater lakes, rivers, and springs.

Brian Lavas, a former public health epidemiologist, officially announced on Friday that Naegleria fowleri However, it is most often called a brain-eating amoeba. “But it’s a very rare disease.”

Investigators believe the teenager was exposed to the warm waters of Lake Mead.south Nevada The health district did not identify the teen who died, but he was exposed to microscopic organisms in the Kingman Wash area on the Arizona side of the Colorado River Reservoir behind the Hoover Dam on the weekend of Sept. 30. The district made the incident public on Wednesday following confirmation of the cause from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 1962, the CDC has documented only 154 deaths from amebas in the United States, according to Labs, who teaches in the Department of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Almost half of these cases occurred in Texas and Florida. He had only one reported in Nevada by this week.

“I can’t say we need to sound alarms for this,” Labus said. “You have to be careful when you’re in a place where this rare amoeba actually lives.” he said.

The district and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which oversees the lake and the Colorado River, noted that the amoeba infects people only by entering the nose and traveling to the brain.

“It is not contagious when swallowed and cannot be spread from person to person,” said a news release from both agencies. Both advise people not to jump or dive into warm bodies of water, especially during the summer months, and keep their heads above water in hot springs and other “untreated geothermal waters” that pool in the pocket canyons of the vast recreation area. I advised you to

“It’s 97% fatal, but 99% is preventable,” said Denise Kyle, professor of infectious diseases and cell biology and director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging World Diseases at the University of Georgia. . “You can protect yourself by not jumping into your nose and using nose plugs.”

Amoebas cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis. It is a brain infection with symptoms similar to meningitis or encephalitis, initially accompanied by headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting. It progresses to stiff neck, seizures, coma, and sometimes death.

Symptoms begin 1 to 12 days after exposure and death usually occurs within about 5 days. There is no known effective treatment, and Kyle says the diagnosis is often made too late.

An investigation of news reports found cases in northern California, Nebraska, and Iowa. CDC maps show the southern US states with the highest number of cases over the past 60 years, with 39 in Texas and 37 in Florida.

“I think this is an average year for case numbers,” Kyle said. “But we had a very hot summer this year. The important point is that warmer weather tends to produce more amoebas in the environment.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/21/las-vegas-brain-eating-amoeba-death-lake-mead Las Vegas teenager dies of brain-eating amoeba as experts warn of panic | Las Vegas

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