Brain-eating amoebas
The infection: Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis (GAE), caused by various species of free-living amoeba that invade and eat away at the brain.
Symptoms and treatment: Initial neurological symptoms include confusion and loss of coordination, which is often followed by more serious complications like seizures, coma and ultimately death.
Threat potential: These amoebas are abundantly found in soil and water environments, where they normally feast on bacteria. Some species can be a relatively common source of eye infections, but all of them only rarely cause the brain-eating variety. Even so, these latter infectionsare almost always fatal. And in a few cases, it’s likely that people directly contracted the amoeba from contaminated soil.
