I don't know about you guys, but the title is enough to creep me out. Anyway . . . A freshwater parasite people are calling the 'brain-eating amoeba' has killed it's second victim. A kid named Chris Strickland, nine years old from Virginia, died after getting an infection on a fishing trip, he died on August 5th, and they thought it was of meningitis. Apparently not. The rest of the article is here.
._. Suddenly I have a phobia of all local rivers ever. To be serious though, I do hope they develop a countermeasure to this soon. "Safe swimming measures" aren't going to be very useful in stopping a microscopic organism from finding its way into your brain like that. My condolences to both families.
I guess people need to start being more careful now when fishing and make sure they don't have any open wounds.
What a headliner. This reminds me of the swine flu. It may be scary but the number of victims are so low, that it's really not something you should concern yourself about.
This makes me not want to go swimming ever again, be it river, lake, or pool. This is actually really scary though, considering you can get it so unexpectedly when it's so deadly.
i ready somewhere at "1" person has died (before now) since the 1970's I wont add fresh water to my list of fears any time soon.
holy smokes a third kid has died. A nine-year-old Virginia boy has died after swimming in water infected by a bug known as the "brain-eating amoeba," according to reports. It was the third such death this month.
I had swine flu. It wasn't that bad. But yeah it sucks those two died but still thank god the death count is so low.
What my concern is is why this was never really announced to the public? Like Trigger said, it's so unexpected and deadly that it should be something that they really tell people about. I mean, I probably never would have even heard about it if it wasn't for this thread. ._.
My condolences go to all three families, but this seems to be Virginia-based so far. I only swim in summer anyway, so it's all good.
I read this earlier today. It now made me paranoid. >> I mean, I don't go swimming often but still. It's something that can really scare the living hell out of people, especially just by the name itself. As Plums said, they should have mentioned this earlier if people have died between 2001 and 2010. That's one thing that's really bothering me. It should have been mentioned so people could actually take more precautions.
If people were told it would have caused more of a mass panic. People tend not to think logically in situations such as these.
I completely forgot about the panic factor. /derp But yeah, that is true. I dunno, I think i would feel a bit safer knowing a bit more about these amoebas than just their environment - which, despite being a warning not to swim or anything there, doesn't really give us much info about them. Has anyone been studying these things? I'd imagine so, but considering the death rate, albeit low, is rising, an in-depth study couldn't hurt.
