Fox 4 KC – by MERYL LIN MCKEAN AND ABBY EDEN
MISSION, Kan. — An extremely rare brain-eating amoeba has killed a nine-year-old girl from Johnson County.
Hally Yust, 9, from Spring Hill was an avid skier and died two days ago on Wednesday.
The amoeba is found in fresh water. A county disease investigator tells FOX 4 that Yust had several potential exposures in fresh water in Kansas, so the actual source of infection cannot be determined. She was taken to a hospital with meningitis-like symptoms and testing revealed the amoeba infection.
It’s called Naegleria fowleri. It’s in lakes, rivers and hot springs. Infection is extremely rare. There have been fewer than 200 cases in the U.S. in more than 50 years. There was also a death in a Wichita-area resident in 2011.
“The amoeba goes up through the nose and into the brain and once it’s there, there’s really nothing anybody can do. There’s only been one case that actually lived through this. All the other cases have passed away,” said Tiffany Geiger, the investigator with the Johnson County Health Department.
Geiger says even though the chances of getting the brain-eating amoeba are very low, you can lower the chances by wearing noseplugs when swimming, skiing or doing other fresh water activities. The risk does increase in the summer with warmer water temperatures.
Symptoms usually appear five days after infection. They include headache, fever, nausea, stiff neck and confusion.
The health department says infection cannot be spread from person to person, and you cannot get it from a swimming pool which is properly maintained.
On Friday, FOX 4′s Abby Eden spoke with Yust’s mother about her little girl.
Her family released this statement:
“Our precious daughter, Hally, loved life and part of her great joy was spending time playing in the water. Her life was taken by a rare amoeba organism that grows in many different fresh water settings. We want you to know this tragic event is very, very rare, and this is not something to become fearful about.
We hope you will not live in fear of this rare infection that took our daughter’s life. Our family is very active in water sports, and we will continue to be.
We pray that Hally’s life is not in vain. We are so thankful that she is now with Jesus and her spirit lives on. We appreciate all the love and support from everyone.”
A scholarship fund has been set up in Hally’s honor, and those who wish to contribute are asked to send donations to:
The Hally “Bug” Yust K-State Women’s Basketball Scholarship, Ahearn Fund, 1800 College Ave., Suite 138, Manhattan, Kansas 66502
Yust’s family hopes the scholarship will provide educational opportunities for young women who love basketball as much as their daughter did.
http://fox4kc.com/2014/07/11/brain-eating-amoeba-kills-johnson-county-resident/
“There have been fewer than 200 cases in the U.S. in more than 50 years.”
One case qualifies as being “fewer than 200”, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this anywhere in America. There is however, a lake in Mexico where American tourists catch this all the time, but locals have developed an immunity to it. Did our wet-back invaders deliver this to our waters? That would be a convenient way to “kill whitey”, and that’s what this horde of wet-back scum (and our “president”) is mainly concerned with.
I hadn’t thought about illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America spreading this disease to more northern fresh waters. Good point.
This amoeba is in every inch of soil. It only becomes active when there is water, and the temperature is of that water is over 80 degrees. It is not contagious. It can’t be transferred from person to person. There was a case recent in the past couple of years where it rained and a boy was playing in a ditch and contracted this amoeba. So no the illegals did not bring it here. Naegleria fowleri /nəˈɡlɪəriə/ (also known as the “brain-eating amoeba”) is a free-living, thermophilic excavate form of protist typically found in warm bodies of fresh water, such as ponds, lakes, rivers, and hot springs. It is also found in soil, near warm-water discharges of industrial plants, and in poorly chlorinated, or unchlorinated swimming pools, in an amoeboid or temporary flagellate stage. There is no evidence of this organism living in salt water. It is an amoeba belonging to the phylum Percolozoa. N. fowleri can invade and attack the human nervous system and brain, causing primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Although this occurs rarely, such an infection nearly always results in the death of the victim. The case fatality rate is greater than 95%. here is the website for that boy-http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/13/boy-contracts-brain-eating-amoeba-while-playing-in-ditch/
“This amoeba is in every inch of soil.”
The Fox news article is on a case that occurred in Florida. N fowleri does exist year-around in the southernmost US, as cysts during cold weather, then developing into flagellates and thriving as ameboid trophozoites in the warm waters of July and August, but even the cysts do not survive prolonged freezing which occurs in winter from the upper Texas plains and north, so no, the pathogen does not exist in every inch of soil.
If your academic source states otherwise, please cite it.
It exists in every inch of the soil wherever water temperature reaches above 80 degrees for extended periods of time.Temperature: Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving (thermophilic) ameba able to grow and survive at higher temperatures, such as those found in hot springs and in the human body, even under fever temperatures. Naegleria fowleri grows best at higher temperatures up to 115°F (46°C). Although the amebae may not be able to grow well, Naegleria fowleri can still survive at higher temperatures for short periods of time. The trophozoites and cysts can survive from minutes to hours at 122-149°F (50-65°C) with the cysts being more resistant at these temperatures. Although trophozoites are killed rapidly by refrigeration, cysts can survive for weeks to months at cold temperatures above freezing, although they appear to be sensitive to freezing. As a result, colder temperatures are likely to cause Naegleria fowleri to encyst in lake and river sediment where the cyst offers more protection from freezing water temperatures.