Horror as nine-year-old dies from a rare infection caused by 'brain-eating amoeba'

Health officials in India have warned the public about "brain-eating amoeba" after a nine-year-old girl died from a fatal infection that deteriorated rapidly.

The tragedy unfolded in Kerala, southern India, when the young child's high fever caused her parents to rush them to a local hospital near Thamarassery, August 13.

However, treatment failed to prevent her swift decline, even when she was moved to the larger Kozhikode Government Medical College. She died in this institution, who diagnosed her with primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), according to the Independent.

This condition is caused by the "brain-eating amoeba" Naegleria fowleri, which lives freely in warm soil and fresh water. The amoeba infects people by entering through their noses and travelling to their brains.

PAM quickly infects and attacks brain tissue, with initial symptoms presenting as a fever before the amoeba cause seizures and, eventually, death.

This infection can kill quickly, having a grim 97 per cent global fatality rate when untreated and leaving extremely few survivors. 2014 saw PAM's 11th survivor since it was discovered in the 1970s, coming from the same district in Kerala as the nine-year-old girl who died last week.

Tragically, she was just one of three victims of the current PAM outbreak in Kerala, where a three-month-old baby and an unidentified person have also been infected and are said to be "battling for their lives," according to the Indian Express.

"We are clueless about how the three-month-old baby got infected by the rare disease," a local official told the publication. However, health authorities are now testing Keralan bodies of water for the "brain-eating amoeba" to track down the cause of the outbreak.

"Once the water body is identified, we will look for those who may have bathed in it recently," medics told a local news agency.

The southern Indian state has witnessed a worrying number of cases in recent years, with 36 PAM infections identified in 2023 alone. However, Kerala managed to escape the odds and only saw nine deaths as a result of these infections.

This is partially a result of greater testing for acute encephalitis syndrome (AES), a condition that can be caused by a variety of diseases, including PAM. When medics identified an increase in these cases last year, the state sent residents a treatment protocol and guidance for managing the infection, cutting the mortality rate.

Doctors advise that the best way to avoid the illness, which is most common in the US, Australia, and India, is not to enter warm, stagnant freshwater after heavy rainfall and to use filtered water for nasal irrigations.