A 12-year-old boy succumbed to amoebic meningoencephalitis infection on Wednesday night in the Kozhikode district of Kerala, the third such fatality in the last two months, health officials said.
The deceased was identified as Mridul EP, a native of Feroke, who passed away while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Kozhikode. The minor, a student of class 7, was admitted to the hospital on June 24 after exhibiting symptoms like severe headache, nausea and vomiting.
The boy is suspected to have caught the infection after bathing in a pond in his neighbourhood. The rare but fatal infection is caused by the free-living amoeba species Naegleria fowleri which are found in fresh-water sources like ponds and lakes. The amoeba enters the human system through the nose and targets the central nervous system. It is known to feed on cells of the brain and leads to extensive tissue damage and necrosis.
Mridul was admitted to two government hospitals and later shifted to a private hospital where he was constantly monitored and given antimicrobial treatment. However, officials said his condition continued to worsen, resulting in his death early Thursday.
Officials of the Ramanattukara municipality shut off access to the pond where Mridul took a bath after his death on Wednesday.
The teenager is the third minor to succumb to the deadly infection since May in the state. The previous deaths were of a 13-year-old girl from Kannur district on June 25 and a five-year-old girl from Malappuram on May 21.
{{/usCountry}}The teenager is the third minor to succumb to the deadly infection since May in the state. The previous deaths were of a 13-year-old girl from Kannur district on June 25 and a five-year-old girl from Malappuram on May 21.
{{/usCountry}}A senior government health official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said, “We are evaluating the situation in the backdrop of the three deaths and have intensified surveillance. We checked for symptoms in other children and people who had taken a bath in the same pond as Mridul, but so far no one has shown any symptoms.”
The health official said that people don’t need to panic. “They don’t need to completely avoid bathing in ponds or lakes because this is an extremely rare infection. We will definitely test samples from various water sources to check for presence of the amoeba species. As the monsoon strengthens and rain intensifies, the water in these sources will get more diluted, eliminating the chances of such infections,” he said.
Amoebic meningoencephalitis has a 90% mortality rate and although rare, it can have fatal consequences once diagnosed. Antimicrobial therapy is mainly used as part of treatment protocol.