The 11-year-old girl with Lowcountry ties who contracted a deadly brain-eating amoeba has died.
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The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) said they believed Hannah contracted the amoeba on July 24 while swimming near Martin’s Landing on the Edisto River in Charleston County.
Miltefosine, a drug used to treat patients fighting the amoeba, was driven to Charleston via courier overnight Monday after the CEO of the drug company that manufacturers the medicine received a call. “I pray she gives me the strength to conquer the hard days ahead of me”, read a Facebook post on a page providing updates on her condition.
SC health officials confirmed Tuesday that someone had been exposed to Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER’-ee-uh FOW’-lur-ee), a one-celled organism that can cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis. “We are now waiting for her to join the angels in heaven”.
The brain-eating amoeba was blamed for the death in June of an 18-year-old OH woman, who became infected after rafting at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The brain-eating amoeba was blamed for the death in June of an 18-year-old OH woman, who became infected after rafting at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. “You can not be infected by merely drinking water containing the ameba”, Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist said.
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Health officials say infection can occur when water with the organism enters the nose.
