Terrifying 'killer' eats red blood cells and likes to nest in human brain and liver

Amoeba is a parasite that attacks the brain, red blood cells and liver, and is found in all vegetables if they are watered with manure or water contaminated with amoeba.

Amoeba that eats red blood cells.

Death by parasites

Before being infected with the brain-eating amoeba, patient PVT (from Phu Yen) and his friends were diving to catch mussels in a bau (a large pond or lake) near his house.

After returning to Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. T. suddenly had a fever and headache. He bought medicine to take but it did not help. The patient was admitted to Gia Dinh People's Hospital with symptoms of headache and drowsiness.

Upon performing a spinal tap, doctors suspected the patient was infected with an amoeba but were unable to identify it specifically. Immediately after, the doctors transferred the patient to the Tropical Diseases Hospital for treatment.

At the Tropical Diseases Hospital, the cerebrospinal fluid test results did not show any tuberculosis bacteria or fungi causing meningitis, but there was the presence of an amoeba. Afterwards, the patient continued to have a high fever, 40-41 degrees Celsius, respiratory failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, and fell into a deep coma and died.

Professor Nguyen Van De - Former Head of the Department of Parasitology, Hanoi Medical University, said that amoebic disease caused by water contaminated with amoeba is not rare in Vietnam, especially in the northern provinces where many patients are infected with this parasite. This parasite thrives in warm freshwater areas such as ponds, lakes, rivers, streams... in the summer; even swimming pools that are not cleaned and disinfected.

However, people get infected with this disease mainly through food. Amoeba enters the human body and develops in the body causing dysentery in humans, but they can be eliminated or attack the lungs, liver and brain.

Parasites addicted to red blood cells

According to Professor De, this parasite has 3 forms. The first is the active form that eats red blood cells, also known as the magna form, which is the pathogenic amoeba form. In the endoplasmic reticulum, there are red blood cells and they move quickly by releasing pseudopodia from the outer layer of the cytoplasm. This form causes acute amoebic disease in the intestines or abscesses in the liver, lungs, brain, etc.

The small, non-erythrocyte-feeding Minuta form does not cause dysentery. There are no erythrocytes in the cytoplasm, they move by pseudopodia.

Cysts are the self-protecting and dispersing bodies of amoeba. Cysts are spherical, immobile, have a thick, refractive shell. Young cysts contain only 1-2 nuclei, a vacuole, and a few sharp-ended, refractive iron-loving rods. Old cysts have 4 nuclei. Cysts exist in the environment and in healthy people, they are a reservoir of pathogens.

According to Professor De, people are infected with amoeba mainly by eating amoeba cysts from food. Amoeba in the human intestine can include a saprophytic cycle and a pathogenic cycle.

Amoeba that eats red blood cells and is excreted in the stool, some of these forms enter the blood and travel to the liver causing amoebic liver abscess, sometimes to the lungs causing lung abscess, and more rarely, amoeba travels to the brain causing amoebic brain abscess.

In Vietnam, according to a 2004 survey by the Central Institute of Hygiene, Malaria, Parasitology, the rate of amoeba infection among primary school students in Ninh Binh, Phu Tho, and Ha Giang was 11.7%./.

According to Infonet