KARACHI: The city’s health authorities on Wednesday confirmed that a 14-year-old boy who was admitted to a private hospital suffering from Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, died on Monday.

Dr Zafar Mehdi, head of the committee on Naegleria, told Dawn that 14-year-old Mir Nauman, a resident of Nazimabad No. 1, who had been brought to a private hospital and was tested positive for the lethal disease died after three days.

He said the teenager was brought to the hospital in a critical condition.

Experts said the fatality rate of the lethal disease was 98 per cent. He was the fifth person in more than two months who died of the deadly disease.

Officials in the health ministry said the single-cell microorganism had killed six people last year.

Officials said they had tested the water being supplied to the area and had found “no traces of chlorine” in it.

Dr Mehdi said the boy might have died because of performing ablution with unsafe and Naegleria-infected water.

Chlorination of water is the key method to kill the germ and keep the deadly disease at bay.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2018