News Desk

The Advocate Post: An Indian teenager is now among a handful of people in the world to survive a rare brain-eating amoeba, partly due to his father chancing upon a public awareness campaign on social media.

It is believed that 14-year-old Afnan Jasimcontracted the infection in June after swimming in a nearby pond in the southern state of Kerala.

According to his physician, the amoeba, known as Naegleria fowleri, most likely got into his body through polluted water.

The amoeba-caused disease known as primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) has a 97% fatality rate.

Only eight other persons have survived the sickness between 1971 and 2023, according to the US Centers for sickness Control and Prevention, which are located in four different countries: Australia, the US, Mexico, and Pakistan.

A key factor in each patient’s recovery was the timely diagnosis of the infection, which occurred in all cases between nine hours and five days after the symptoms started.

Prompt treatment is critical for the disease’s cure, according to medical professionals. Headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, stiff neck, loss of balance, seizures, and/or hallucinations are some of the signs and symptoms of PAM.

Afnan went for a swim in a nearby pond in the Kozhikode region five days prior to the onset of the symptoms. He started having convulsions and complaining of excruciating migraines.

Despite his parents’ efforts to get him better, Afnan did not get better. Fortunately, his 46-year-old father MK Siddiqui was astute enough to associate his son’s symptoms with something he had come across on social media.

Dairy farmer Mr. Siddiqui said he happened to come across information on the fatal brain-eating amoeba while reading about the impacts of the Nipah virus on social media. A youngster in Kerala recently died from the illness.

“I’ve read that infections can result in seizures. “I immediately took Afnan to the nearby hospital as soon as he started having seizures,”

Mr. Siddiqui stated.