KARACHI: A teenager died of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) — a disease of the central nervous system caused by Naegleria fowleri, better known as ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, — on Sunday at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), officials said.

They said that the 19-year-old patient, a waiter by profession and resident of Saddar, was admitted to the hospital on Saturday in critical condition.

“He had complaints of persisting high fever, headache and vomiting,” Dr Yahya Tunio, JPMC’s deputy executive director, told Dawn.

He added that it’s the second mortality by PAM this year at the hospital.

“N.fowleri thrives in warm, freshwater and can enter the body through the nose where it travels to the brain and starts destroying tissues. That’s why it’s called the brain-eating amoeba. The resulting illness (PAM) is almost always fatal,” he said, adding that the germ cannot survive in cool, clean, chlorinated water.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2023