KARACHI: Provincial health authorities on Thursday confirmed the 10th death of the current year caused by the lethal Naegleria fowleri, also called ‘brain-eating amoeba’, in the province.

The officials said a 25-year-old man in Karachi’s Malir neighbourhood was the latest victim of Naegleria fowleri that caused primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

The patient was admitted in ‘critical’ condition to a private hospital and put on ventilator of an intensive care unit on Wednesday, where he died the same day. The authorities confirmed the death on Thursday.

“The patient was admitted with fever, headache and vertigo in the ICU,” said a health department official.

The officials said the victim was initially treated at some health facilities in his area for meningitis and shifted to a large private hospital when his condition deteriorated.

He was the seventh victim of the deadly disease of Karachi. Three other people who died in hospitals of Karachi were brought from Umerkot, Thatta and Hub.

The deadly disease killed 14 people last year.

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

The appalling rise in the frequency of deaths because of the deadly disease has exposed authorities’ claims of taking adequate measures to curb the horrors of the germ that had killed 32 people over the past three years.

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

Constituted by the government in May, a focal group collected samples of water and its results showed more than half of the city was supplied with water chlorinated much less than the desired levels.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015

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