Boy, 10, is third Israeli diagnosed with rare ‘brain-eating amoeba’

A 10-year-old child suffering from encephalitis is on a ventilator in the intensive care unit at Ziv Hospital in Safed, the Health Ministry reports, confirming that the boy contracted a very rare “brain-eating amoeba”

The ministry’s epidemiological investigation confirmed that the boy contracted the disease as a result of a rare amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, at Gai Beach water park in Tiberias.

This is the same location where a 25-year-old man contracted the Naegleria fowleri disease and died in early July.

The ministry orders the park closed immediately. Environmental health inspectors had examined the beach after the first case was reported, but no initial evidence of amoeba contamination was found.

The ministry also requests that if a person who has been to the water park and experienced one or more of the following symptoms — fever, headache, blurred vision or vomiting — go to the nearest hospital’s emergency room.

The mortality rate from encephalitis, an infection of the brain, caused by the amoeba is extremely high, and while infection is extremely rare, it is often fatal.

In August 2022, a 36-year-old man died of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection caused by the same amoeba.

These are the only three recorded cases in Israel. Only some 400 cases have ever been diagnosed worldwide.