Waterborne Diseases And Standing Water Create ‘Bleak’ Situation For Pakistani Families: Warming temperatures could fuel the spread of a deadly, brain-eating amoeba in the U.S. that killed 147 people between 1962 and 2020. This summer, monsoon-driven flooding made worse by climate change submerged one-third of Pakistan, killing more than 1,500 people in total, including at least 324 people who have died from malaria and other waterborne diseases. “The situation for Pakistani families is beyond bleak,” Unicef Pakistan’s representative, Abdullah Fadil, told The Guardian. With floodwaters likely to linger for as long as six months, however, the number who succumb to waterborne and mosquito-vectored illnesses, including diarrhea, dengue fever, and skin conditions. “These all are water-borne diseases. You see standing water in the flooded areas where mosquitoes are rampant and people don’t have clean drinking water and they walk in the contaminated water and drink the same water.” Dr. Faiq Ali who sees hundreds of children a day in the clinic he set up in heavily-impacted Warah in Sindh province. “The doctors are asking us to get tests done in Karachi … but we cannot afford that. We don’t have money,” Rawat Khan told The Guardian of her children’s infected ear and chest. “We only saved our lives. We could save nothing else. We are helpless to see our children falling sick and we are unable to do anything about it.” (Pakistan: The Guardian, Reuters; Brain-eating amoeba: The Guardian)
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How the climate crisis is fueling the spread of a brain-eating amoeba
Naegleria fowleri grows in warm fresh water, making it well-suited to proliferate as temperatures rise in the US
The death of a child in Nebraska this summer put the rare but deadly Naegleria fowleri – more commonly known as brain-eating amoeba – back in the headlines. The amoeba lives in warm, fresh water and can enter the body through the nose, where it travels to the brain and starts to destroy tissue.
The case underscored a troubling new reality – climate change is encouraging the amoeba to pop up in parts of the US where it isn’t typical, such as the north and west.
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The amoeba causes an illness called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, and while getting sick is rare – between 2012 to 2021, only 31 cases were reported in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control – it’s incredibly lethal. According to the CDC, only four people out of 151 have survived the infection between 1962 and 2020.
In the US, Naegleria has typically been limited to the southern states, but in recent years it has spread steadily northward. A 2021 study showed that even though the rate of infections hasn’t budged, the amoeba is moving from southern states to midwestern areas. It’s been found as far north as Minnesota.
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“As the temperature of surface waters increases further north, we expect more cases in the future,” says Gerba. “I would expect this trend to continue.”
