Tue
Oct 2 2007
07:14 am

Global warming will undoubtedly bring many new diseases because amobeas thrive in heat, a this somewhat alarming spike in the brain-eating Naegleria fowleri has some scientists worried. So far all the states that have reported deaths from the bug are warm ones. It makes you think if the climate does change here, Tennesseeans might someday all be wearing nose plugs when we bounce into our many lakes and rivers. It doesn't say if fish are susceptable, but then again do fish have nostrils?

"Though infections tend to be found in Southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.

Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve.

The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, “basically feeding on the brain cells,” Beach said."

(link...)

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