This story is told to us by The Orlando Sentinel.
In early August, while on vacation in Orlando with his parents, Sebastian DeLeon, a 16-year-old American, complained of severe headaches. Very quickly, the pain intensified and he could no longer bear the slightest physical contact.
The boy’s parents, very worried, called the Florida Children’s Hospital where the doctors received him urgently. At first glance, Sebastian displays several symptoms of meningitis (intolerance to light, headaches, nausea …) but he does not have stiff neck, a characteristic sign of this serious illness.
An infection as rare as it is terrifying
The doctors then decide to perform a lumbar puncture in order to take cerebrospinal fluid and continue their analyzes. The head of the laboratory, Sheila Black, who recently received training to detect the presence of amoeba Naegleria Fowler, offers to study this trail and examines the boy again. His intuition is correct and the doctors discover that the boy is infected with this extremely rare microorganism.
Indeed, since 1962, only three people out of 138 contaminated by this amoeba (or 2% of cases!) Have succeeded in curing in the United States. The Naegleria Fowleri, the “brain-eating” amoeba, is a microorganism found in small quantities in fresh water at high temperature (25 to 45 ° C), often near cooling circuits of thermal power stations, for example. It enters the human body when the victim inhales contaminated water. Going up the olfactory nerve, it attacks the brain by “devouring everything in its path” and causes a primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (MEAP), that is to say an almost certain death in a fortnight at most.
Emergency treatment
Time is of the essence because Sebastian must be treated before the amoeba reaches the brain. Doctors quickly get an antidote that is used as part of chemotherapy and which shows encouraging signs in this kind of infection. The parents, warned of the seriousness of the situation, are then invited to bid Sebastian farewell before the start of treatment. “I had to tell them: say everything you ever wanted to say to your child,” says Dr Liriano.
The young man is then plunged into a medicated coma, his body refrigerated to nearly 33 ° C, a tube in his throat to allow him to breathe. Then it’s the start of a long wait for doctors and parents, wondering whether or not the antidote will work on the deadly amoeba.
A miracle”
72 hours later, a lumbar puncture was performed again and the doctors no longer noticed any trace of amoeba in his body: the operation was a success, Sebastian was considered saved! “In a few hours, he was talking,” said Dr Liriano.
The parents thanked the medical team for the incredible responsiveness which made this “gift of life” possible. The teenager then quickly recovered and, after two weeks of treatment, was able to leave the hospital with his parents. A few weeks of rehabilitation should be enough for him to be fully recovered.
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