KARACHI: A 33-year-old man from Hub town in Balochistan died of Naegleria fowleri germ, commonly known as the ‘brain-eating amoeba’, at the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) after having remained under treatment for three days, bringing this year’s toll from the deadly disease to seven, officials said on Sunday.

Officials said the patient identified as Mohammad Asif was brought to the CHK in critical condition. “He remained in a precarious condition, complaining of severe headache, nausea and irritability for three days and died on late Saturday evening,” said Dr Zafar Ejaz while speaking to Dawn.

Officials said the victim was initially treated at some health facilities in Hub for malaria and then for meningitis but when his condition continued to deteriorate the family finally shifted him to the CHK.

All the seven Naegleria-related deaths this year have been reported from hospitals in the metropolis. A 40-year-old man came from Thatta district while apart from a teenage girl victim in Gulistan-i-Jauhar the rest of the six deaths have been reported in May.

A young resident of Orangi Town’s MPR Colony, identified as Muallim, 22, who died a day earlier at the CHK, was the sixth victim of Naegleria reported this year.

Both the latest victims of the lethal germ were admitted to the CHK’s medical intensive care unit in the Operation Theatre Complex, where they breathed their last.

Experts say just two out of hundreds of cases of the disease in its history have survived in the world.

Before them, four cases were reported in Karachi –– a teenage girl, a middle-aged woman, a 37-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy –– and all of them succumbed to the disease.

The man from Thatta who died at a Karachi hospital was the first victim who contracted the disease outside the limits of the metropolis.

Sources in the provincial health department said they were waiting for test results of another suspected case of Naegleria at a government hospital.

The patient, they added, was admitted to the hospital a day earlier showing signs similar to that of Naegleria. However, similar signs could be seen in meningitis patients.

The appalling rise in the frequency of deaths from the deadly disease has exposed the authorities’ claims of having taken adequate measures to curb the germ, which killed 29 people over the past three years with 14 deaths recorded just last year.

The lethal amoeba, which survives on the bacteria in warm waters and enters human brain through nasal cavity and eats up its tissues, could only be decimated through proper chlorination or boiling of water.

Soon after the death of the resident of Orangi town, teams of a focal group formed by the provincial health department went to the MPR Colony to collect water samples supplied to the neighbourhood and check its chlorination level.

The residents were extremely charged because of the death of a young neighbour and tried to attack the teams but the victim’s family saved them, said an official on the occasion.

“The teams collected the samples and later to everyone’s dismay they found none of the samples showed any trace of chlorination. The water supplied was without chlorine, which was nothing short of criminal negligence on part of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB),” said the official.

Another official quoted Muallim’s father who demanded protection of the rest of the residents as saying: “I have already lost my son but at least save the rest by providing them properly chlorinated water”.

Recent results of water sampling in the city show that out of the samples collected and tested so far, around 55 per cent were found to be chlorinated to less than the desired levels.

However, the KWSB managing director at a press conference at the COD Filter Plant that his organisation maintained state-of-the-art facilities to monitor and check chlorination levels.

He said chlorination at a “desired level” was being ensured at all KWSB filter plants while its sodium hypochlorite plants were working without fail. Instead of water samples taken from the areas it was better to collect them directly from the filter plants as it was possible that water tanks used in residential and industrial units might not have been cleaned properly, he added.

He said the expenses on chlorine had risen from Rs9 million to Rs130 million and asked people to clean their tanks at home, mosques, schools, hostels, shopping malls and offices as a preemptive measure.

However, the authorities’ claim of investing heavily in public awareness campaign has failed to impress anyone as the pamphlets might have changed hands in public places but none of them was found pasted inside hospitals or the ablution places or outside mosques where people could contract the disease while rinsing their noses with unsafe and poorly chlorinated water.

Officials said the germ could potentially make way to the victim’s brain through nasal cavity during ablution at home or in mosques where water supplies were not safely chlorinated or boiled.

Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is defined in medical literature as a rare but typically fatal infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba found in rivers, lakes, springs, drinking water networks and poorly chlorinated swimming pools.

The illness attacks a healthy person, three to seven days after exposure to contaminated water with symptoms of headache and slight fever, in some cases associated with sore throat and rhinitis (commonly called stuffy nose).

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2015

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