Prevent naegleria fowleri: speakers urge to use boiled water to clean nostrils

Speakers at an awareness seminar at the Government College University in Lahore said that only boiled or chlorinated water should be used for cleaning nose to prevent naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating amoeba that inhabits in warm freshwaters and infects humans by entering the nose during water-related activities including swimming and ablution.
The seminar called "prevention and control of naegleria fowleri" was organised by the university's Quality Enhancement Cell following directions by the Punjab government to raise awareness among teachers, staff and students about the fatal brain-eating amoeba that had reportedly claimed about 12 lives in Sindh in the last year. In his keynote address, the Fatima Jinnah Medical University Lahore's Head of Paediatrics, Professor Doctor Rashid Mahmood, said the disease was 98 percent fatal but 100 percent preventable by taking simple precautionary measures during the water related activities. He said a total of about 440 cases had been reported world-wide, out of which only three people survived and more than 75 percent cases were reported in children.
The doctor advised students to avoid swimming or diving in warm freshwater places during summer, putting the head under contaminated water and rinsing nasal sinuses through nose. He also clarified that the infections did not occur when this water was swallowed and only occurred when the amoeba entered through the nose. Professor Mahmood also highlighted the symptoms of the disease and its diagnostic procedures. However, he said in most of the cases the infection was diagnosed after a patient's death.
Zoology Department Chairman Professor Dr Nusrat Jahan said naegleria fowleri was a heat-loving, free-living amoeba (single-celled microbe), commonly found around the world in warm freshwater such as ponds, lakes, swimming pools, air-conditioning units, water pipes and hot-water heaters and public drinking water systems. She said once entered the nose, the amoeba travelled to the brain and caused a severe brain infection, which was mostly fatal and patient died in just five to 12 days.
Professor Jahan said most patients in Karachi acquired this disease while performing the religious ablution (wuzu) with tap water, contaminated with the amoeba, adding that proper chlorinated water should be ensured to prevent infection. VC Professor Dr Hassan Amir Shah said, "The Punjab government has launched the awareness campaign prior to the outbreak of this deadly disease which must be highly appreciated."
Quality Enhancement Cell Director Iram Sohail said they had learnt about the amoeba in intermediate as a unicellular organism but after that never knew that it could be as harmful as the name naegleria fowleri suggested. She said the danger of outbreak of this menace should be taken care of before it blew out of proportion.