Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Zombies are real... sort of

If you think your job is hard, you should try being an amoeba. While they often just lounge around the bottom of a lake, which sounds like a good ol' time, other times they have to go ahead and eat some brains.

The latest victim chosen by the Naegleria fowleri -- which might as well be Latin for zombie -- was a 14-year-old boy who happened to get some lake water up his nose around Sept. 10, 2007. The boy died one week later after the amoeba, which was in the water, ate its way from the boy's nasal cavity into his brain.

There were six deaths associated with this zombie-amoeba in 2007 and -- guess what -- half of the cases were in Florida. The most common way for the amoeba to enter the nasal cavity is through water, as it is known to live near the bottom of warm fresh-water lakes and in some swimming pools. I still don't understand why people go swimming in lakes when the state is covered in beaches and swimming pools, granted not all pools are safe from this microscopic beast.

Besides Florida, there have been two cases in Texas this year and one in Arizona. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 23 documented infections between 1995 and 2004, which makes the six cases this year that much more significant. Apparently amoebic infections are on the rise, possibly leading to a zombie uprising of microscopic proportions.

This type of amoebic infection can be found using an MRI, and it can be treated with antibiotics. Unfortunately, many medical professionals are not used to looking for amoebas, reports CNN. Yes, this article was linked earlier, but I'm not sure if any of you click the links anyway.

For some reason, no one ever believes me when I bring up the brain-eating amoeba in everyday conversation. This habit started in 2002 when I read about the case in Georgia and, for some reason, the habit is still going strong.

Maybe I just like to say the word "amoeba."

One of our sneakier amoebic friends, the Acanthamoeba (Latin for eye-muncher, or something), found its way into the eyes of 138 people earlier this year and was supposedly linked to contact solution. It was never officially determined whether the solution contained the amoebas or if the solution simply didn't kill the organisms. Instead of going for the brain, this amoeba is seemingly content with the cornea.

Unlike the zombie-amoeba, eye-muncher is not linked to certain death. It only seems to lead to vision loss, which is still a serious problem. Some of the amoeba's victims are undergoing Keratoplasty, or corneal transplants, in an effort to correct their vision.

I don't know what we did to anger these little organisms, but as Tyra Banks would probably say, amoebas are fierce.

No comments: