The Killer in the Lake

It’s a warm sunny day in southern England, the first after a long cold winter. And proud grandparents Brian and Karen are proud to take their only grandson, little Chesney, to a country park. It was where Brian himself played fifty years before. And it’ll give the child’s mother, a hardworking nurse, a break. The water of the lake looks so inviting that little Chesney begs to put on his arm bands and plunge in. Brian, remembering his own happy hours there, agrees. But as the adults watch their grandson splashing happily, little to they realise he has already entered the last painful hours of his short life.

Problems start after they return home. Chesney complains of feeling sick. He becomes listless and starts showing signs of a fever, which rapidly grows worse. The grandparents rush the boy to the local Emergencies section of the nearest hospital. Doctors report that the fever has spread to the little boys brain. It is they say Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis, a disease caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri. It has entered the boy’s nasal sinuses, and travelled rapidly up to the brain, which it has begun to feed on from the inside outwards. The fatality rate is 97%. There is just time to call the boy’s mother back from her shift before he dies in her arms.

Fanciful? It could become all too common according to this story by Rebecca Whittaker of the Mail.[1] What Brian didn’t know is that the planet has been warming steadily since his younger days , allowing the deadly amoeba to multiply to unprecedented levels in the lake. Now British lakes and rivers are as warm as those of the Southern United States. A paradise for Naegleria.

And what can be done? Well, there is some hope [2] Despite the colossal fatality rate some antibiotics and some steroids seem to ameliorate the disease in some cases. Better Government inspection and testing of lakes and other swimming places could help, although in Britain that seems a unlikely at the moment. Best of all might be to slowdown the breakneck pace of global warming. Good luck with the last one.

^{the names and family in the first part of this piece are entirely imaginary}

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13187827/Warning-brain-eating-parasite-99-death-rate-making-way-British-water.html

[2]https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/general.html#anchor_91787

#meningitis #naegleria fowleri #water born disease #swimming #pollution #global warming