Naegleria

fowleri can invade and attack the human nervous system; although this occurs rarely, such an infection will nearly always result in the death of the victim. fowleri can invade the central nervous system via the nose, more specifically the olfactory mucosa and nasal tissues.

The penetration initially results in significant necrosis of and hemorrhaging in the olfactory bulbs. From there, amoebae climb along nerve fibers through the floor of the cranium via the cribriform plate and into the brain.PAM is a syndrome affecting the central nervous system, characterized by changes in olfactory perception (taste and smell), followed by vomiting, nausea, fever, headache, and the rapid onset of coma and death in two weeks.
PAM usually occurs in healthy children or young adults with no prior history of immune compromise who have recently been exposed to bodies of fresh water.
Amphotericin B is effective against N. fowleri in vitro, but the prognosis remains bleak for those that contract PAM, and survival remains less than 1%. On the basis of the in vitro evidence alone, the CDC currently recommend treatment with Amphotericin B for primary amebic meningoencephalitis, but there is no evidence that this treatment affects outcome.
Timely diagnosis remains a very significant impediment to the successful treatment of infection, as most cases have only been appreciated post-mortem.

It killed 23 people in the US from 1995 to 2004, and killed six in 2007 (3 in Florida, 2 in Texas, and 1 in Arizona). In 2008, to date, there has been 1 death in California.
Detection
N.Detection in water is performed by centrifuging a water sample with Escherichia coli added, and then applying the pellet to a non-nutrient agar plate. After several days the plate is microscopically inspected and Naegleria cysts are identified by their morphology.

Final confirmation of the species' identity can be performed by various molecular or biochemical methods. Confirmation of Naegleria presence can be done by so called flagellation test, when amoeba is exposed to hypotonic environment (distilled water). Naegleria in contrast to other amoebae differentiates within two hours into flagellar state.Pathogenicity can be further confirmed by exposition to high temperature (42°C): Naegleria fowleri is able to grow at this temperature, but the non-pathogenic Naegleria gruberi is not.
Incidents and outbreaks
Czech Republic


Histopathology of amoebic meningoencephalitis.

Between years 1962–1965, 16 young people died of acute meningoencephalitides in Ústí nad Labem as a consequence of bathing in an indoor swimming pool.

United States
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the amoeba killed 23 people between 1995 and 2004.
In August 2005, two Oklahoma boys, ages 7 and 9 were killed by N. fowleri after swimming in hot stagnant water of the lakes in the Tulsa area.
In 2007, six cases were reported in the U.S., all fatal:
In July, the amoeba caused the deaths of three boys in lakes around Orlando, Florida.

Possible causes of the infections include higher temperature and droughts in that area of Florida.
In late summer, the amoeba caused the death of a 12-year-old boy and a 22-year-old young man in Lake LBJ in Texas.
In September, a 14-year-old boy was killed by the amoeba after likely having caught it while swimming in Lake Havasu in Arizona. The doctors suspected meningitis before the boy died, but did not know the etiology until the CDC confirmed it as N.fowleri.

In August 2008, a 9-year-old boy was killed after having been exposed to the amoeba while swimming several times in Lake Elsinore in California. The boy was the first ever confirmed case in Riverside County.

Pop culture references
Naegleria fowleri was featured on the TV show House, in a two-part season 2 episode ("Euphoria" parts 1 and 2).

Both characters developed Anton's blindness, a condition affecting the occipital lobes where the patient thinks he can see but really cannot. fowleri, whose initial symptoms are "alteration in taste (ageusia) or smell (parosmia)".
A "brain-sucking amoeba" that infects swimmers was mentioned in the season 1 episode of The X-files, "Darkness Falls"

The Pocket Book of Death, a nonfiction book describing various ways you might meet your fate, and how several historically known people have, discusses it with a morbid comic by the creators of Cyanide and Happiness.

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