Naegleria fowleri

Naegleria fowleri is known as the "brain eating amoeba" because of the damage that it does to the brain when it enters someone's body. Naegleria fowleri causes a detrimental infection to the brain known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Naegleria fowleri is found worldwide in warm fresh waters such as lakes, rivers and hot springs. This amoeba mainly enters the body through the nose when a person comes in contact with contaminated water. The people that seem to become infected the most are people who dive into lakes, rivers, or any freshwater places.

Naegleria fowleri is is a rare disease that only seems to occur from July to September when most people are enjoying the summer weather and swimming in fresh waters. "Over 60% of U.S. cases are in children age 13 or younger. About 80% of cases are in males." Even though this is a worldwide disease, the majority of the reported cases happen in the United States and also millions of people are exposed to the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, but only a handful actually become sick.

Naegleria fowleri normally eat bacteria to survive; but it is known as the "brain eating amoeba" because it feeds on a person's brain for a food source since there is no bacteria in the body for it to feed upon. "Studies suggest that N. fowleri amoebas are attracted to the chemicals that nerve cells use to communicate with one another. Once in the nose, the amoebas travel through the olfactory nerve (the nerve connected with sense of smell) into the frontal lobe of the brain." The symptoms that come along with PAM include: severe frontal headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, stiff neck, seizures, altered mental status, hallucinations, and coma. Most people who start to develop these symptoms die within 5-7 days. This disease is very hard to treat and there is no known medicine that cures the patient by itself; instead there a range a drugs that doctors combine to try and cure the patient. "Overall, the outlook for people who get this disease is poor, although early diagnosis and treatment might increase the chances for survival."


http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/pathogen.html
http://www.webmd.com/brain/brain-eating-amoeba?page=2