Scientists are tracking a new drug targeting a brain-eating ameba that kills 97 percent of infected individuals within five days, tn.nova.cz reported.
The parasitic infection gained notoriety 60 years ago after killing 16 people in Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia, where victims swam in municipal baths supplied by water from the Elbe River. Historian Martin Krsek told tn.nova.cz that the parasite multiplied undetected behind a concrete partition where chlorine could not reach.
“[The amebas] were flushed out when the pool was topped up by about 30 centimeters for races,” Krsek told tn.nova.cz.
The organism enters the human body through the nose, traveling along the olfactory nerves to the brain. Czech scientist Lubor Červa first identified the cause of the mysterious deaths during the historical outbreak.
“Diagnosis is very difficult; under the microscope an experienced expert will see the amoeba, but very often it is overlooked,” Pavel Dlouhý, chairman of the Infectious Medicine Society, told tn.nova.cz. Treatment remains difficult because current medications work slowly.
Researchers in the United States have identified a substance derived from marine bacteria that halts the parasite within four hours of administration. Anjan Debnath, director of the Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Infections in San Diego, spoke about the research.
“We are getting closer to developing a drug that would stop the infection before it causes irreversible damage,” Debnath told tn.nova.cz.
The 1964 outbreak in Ústí nad Labem remains one of the most well-documented instances of primary amebic meningoencephalitis linked to a public aquatic facility. Victims suffered severe headaches, vomiting, rising fevers, and convulsions before rapid neurological decline.
“That caused great hysteria, people were afraid, the cause was investigated,” Krsek told tn.nova.cz, noting that authorities struggled for a long period to identify the pathogen. Červa examined multiple tissue samples from patients to confirm the diagnosis.
“We managed to find it in every single one of those people, taking perhaps ten samples from different places in the brain and spinal cord from each patient,” Červa told tn.nova.cz in a prior interview before his death.
The ameba enters through the nasal passages when water containing the organism is forced up the nose. It then migrates along the olfactory nerves directly into the brain tissue.
Infected individuals experience worsening fevers, severe frontal headaches, vomiting, and convulsions. These symptoms rapidly escalate to death within five days of onset.
Researchers at the Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Infections are currently advancing the compound toward clinical application, though no public release date has been finalized.
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