2nd Child Battling 'Brain-Eating' Amoeba

Zachary Reyna was likely infected while kneeboarding with friends
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 13, 2013 10:47 AM CDT
2nd Child Battling 'Brain-Eating' Amoeba
   (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

A second 12-year-old is now battling a brain-eating parasite in the Southeast. NBC2 reports that Zachary Reyna was likely infected by Naegleria fowleri, a microscopic amoeba that gets to the brain through the nose, while kneeboarding with friends in a ditch in LaBelle, Florida, on Aug. 3. The amoeba lurks in still, warm water and can cause the very rare brain infection primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which the News-Press reports only one person has survived since 1962. Two boys who were with Zachary are apparently fine. (More Naegleria fowleri stories.)

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