While senior officials are still clueless about the spread of much-dreaded ‘brain-eating amoeba’, or Naegleria fowleri, two more deaths, today, from the infection have been confirmed by health officials, at Ziauddin Hopsital.
With the two newly reported deaths, the total number of deaths, for the year, from the brain-eating amoeba has reached 3. The latest known victims of the naegleria fowleri causing primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) included a 40 years old woman, a resident of Defense and 37 years old man from Clifton block 5.
Last month, HTV reported the death of an 18 year old girl in Gulistan-I-Jauhar, in Karachi. She is the first victim of the brain eating amoeba, this year. Last year, 14 people died from it, of which 12 belonged to Karachi only.
Dr. Nadeem Memon, a neurologist at Ziauddin Hospital said that it was the high time that physicians and clinicians went beyond BOOK and international researches and deduced any indigenous opinion on the issue.
Last week, a series of letters were sent across the Sindh province by the Health department Sindh, to the provincial local government departments and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, declaring that Naegleria Fowleri is a risk in the current condition of water reservoirs. They had been asked by the departments to take quick and appropriate actions.
A source in the health department said that a meeting on the subject of naegleria infection had been convened by the provincial health secretary on Monday. What made this infection so terrifying was the fact that it triggered very mild symptoms such as fever, abdominal pain, headache and vomiting, which could easily be confused with other non-fatal diseases, the senior physicians noted.
They said that a public service message be prepared jointly by medical and clinical science experts to warn citizens of the naegleria disease.