Missouri swimmer infected with brain-eating amoeba, likely swim in Iowa lake

BEDFORD, Iowa (AP) — A Missouri resident is hospitalized in intensive care after being infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba that likely happened after swimming in a southeastern Iowa lake, health officials said last week.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services has shut down the beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park in Taylor County after the person was diagnosed with primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a rare and usually fatal infection caused by the naegleria fowleri ameba.

Iowa state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are testing to confirm the presence of the infection in the lake, which could take several days to complete.

People are infected when water containing the ameba enters the body through the nose, usually while victims are swimming or diving in lakes and rivers. The fatality rate is over 97%, according to CDC statistics. Only four people out of 154 known infected individuals in the United States from 1962 to 2021 have survived.

“It’s the worst parasite in the world that we know of because it causes such devastating pathology,” said Christopher Rice, a research scientist in the Center for Drug Discovery at the University of Georgia. He added that the brain infection is difficult to diagnose because it requires a sample of cerebral spinal fluid.

It is believed to be the first case discovered in Iowa. Neighboring states Minnesota, Missouri and Kansas have all reported infections, which have primarily occurred in southern-tier states.