A high school senior from Georgia has died after becoming infected with what the state’s Department of Health says is a rare “brain-eating amoeba.”
The 17-year-old, named in media reports as Megan Ebenroth, passed away on July 22.
“I’m still in shock,” her mother, identified by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as Christina Ebenroth, said to the newspaper. “But I can’t keep silent about her. She was extraordinary.”
The newspaper reports that Ebenroth, a straight-A student who had aspirations to go to the University of Georgia, went swimming in a lake with friends near her home in McDuffie County in early July before treatment for a migraine turned into an emergency room visit, hospitalization and intubation.
GEORGIA RESIDENT DIES FROM RARE BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA FOUND IN FRESHWATER LAKES
“They were so caring, I had the best doctors and nurses. I don’t blame anyone,” Christina Ebenroth told the Journal-Constitution. “This was an act of God. Right now, I’ve got to figure out why.”
The Georgia Department of Health, citing medical privacy law, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that it was not releasing the name of the individual after issuing a press release warning the public about the passing of a state resident from a “Naegleria fowleri infection, a rare infection which destroys brain tissue, causing brain swelling and usually death.”
“Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba (single-celled living organism) that lives in soil and warm, freshwater lakes, rivers, ponds, and hot springs,” the department said. “Naegleria fowleri is not found in salt water, such as the ocean, and it is not found in properly treated drinking water and swimming pools.”
“Naegleria fowleri is commonly called the ‘brain-eating amoeba’ because it can cause a brain infection, primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), when water containing the amoeba goes up the nose. It cannot infect people if swallowed and is not spread from person to person,” added a press release from the…
Read the full article here
