Brain-eating amoebaFlorida teen only the 4th U.S. survivor of brain-eating amoeba claiming 97 percent mortality rate

Published 24 August 2016

A 16-year-old South Florida boy has defied the odds by becoming only the fourth U.S. patient to survive an attack by brain-eating amoeba.Naegleria fowleri is a microscopic amoeba commonly found in warm freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams. If the amoeba enters the body through the nose, it typically makes it way to the brain, causing an extremely rare and destructive infection of the brain. In the past fifty years, only four people in the United States have been reported to have survived out of the 138 cases reported, giving it almost a 97 percent mortality rate.

A 16-year-old South Florida boy has defied the odds by becoming only the fourth U.S. patient to survive an attack by brain-eating amoeba.

Florida’s Department of Health officials say that Sebastian DeLeon, a summer camp counselor, came into contact with the usually lethal Naegleria fowleri infection while swimming on private property in Broward County, Florida.

Dr. Humberto Liriano, a pediatric intensive care physiciant at Florida Hospital for Children, told Miami CBS Local that 5 August DeLeon began developing meningitis-like symptoms while on a family vacation to Orlando — and he soon began to suffer from such an intense headache that he could not tolerate people touching him.

On 7 August his family took him to the Florida Hospital for Children emergency room, where doctors placed him in a chemically induced coma and lowered his body temperature to 33 degrees during a 72-hour stretch.

“We woke him up, and we decided to take the breathing tube out. And within hours, he spoke,”Liriano recalled during a Tuesday press conference.

“Since then, he’s done tremendously well. We are very optimistic. He’s walking. He’s speaking. I saw him this morning. He’s ready to go home,” Liriano said.

Dr. Rajan Wadhawan, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said that Naegleria fowleri is a microscopic amoeba commonly found in warm freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams. If the amoeba enters the body through the nose, it typically makes it way to the brain, causing an extremely rare and destructive infection of the brain.

“In the past fifty years, only four people in the United States have been reported to have survived out of the 138 cases reported, giving it almost a 97 percent mortality rate,” Wadhawan said.

In August 2011, 16-year-old girl died of the amoebic infection after swimming in the St. Johns River near the Brevard-Volusia county line.

Before the 2011 case, Brevard County’s most recent Naegleria fowleri cases were a third-grader who swam at Max K. Rodes Park in West Melbourne in 2002 and a 6-year-old boy who was infected in 1980. Both children died.

“We are so thankful that God has given us the miracle through this medical team and this hospital for having our son back and having him full of life. He’s a very energetic, adventurous, wonderful teen,” said Brunilda Gonzalez, DeLeon’s mother.

The sample of survivors is so small — only four patients — Wadhawan said, that researchers do not know why they survived. The Florida Hospital for Children medical team says, though, that the treatment they gave DeLeon may show the way form future cases.

Doctors quickly used miltefosine, an oral anti-parasitic drug which was delivered to the hospital within twelve minutes by the Orlando-based company Profounda. Miltefosine was used to treat three of the four amoeba survivors, Profounda CEO Todd Maclaughlan told reporters.

Maclaughlan noted that the drug is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but has not been approved for this application by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).