Tiberias water park closed amid fears of brain-eating amoeba
A popular water park was closed, and dozens of Israelis recently there streamed to emergency rooms amid fears of a rare brain-eating amoeba as another patient was being treated for suspected Naegleria Fowleri.
Gai Water Park
The patient, a young Israeli man and several children arrived at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital complaining of fever. All had recently been at the Gai Beach Water Park in Tiberias, a hospital spokesperson said on Thursday. The children were checked and released without suspected N. fowleri.
If confirmed, the patient would be Israel’s second diagnosis of the rare Naeglerai Fowleri this week and the third in July.
The Ministry of Health issued guidelines on Wednesday for hospitals on examining patients suspected of contracting the amoeba. Anyone with symptoms associated with the amoeba — headaches, blurred vision, vomiting or neck pains — and was at the water park within the last two weeks is required to go to an emergency room.
At the North Medical Centre-Poria in Tiberias, more than 30 people were checked and sent home while four children were hospitalized for further testing. Another 20 people were checked at the Emek Medical Centre in Afula and sent home.
Meanwhile, a 10-year-old boy being treated for N. fowleri remains sedated and on a ventilator at the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed.
“The medical team in the chidlren’s department continues to give him the best care and we are all here praying for his recovery,” a Ziv spokesperson said.
N. fowleri thrives in warm freshwater environments such as lakes, rivers, hot springs, and poorly maintained or minimally chlorinated swimming pools. In most cases, nothing will happen to people who swim in waters where the amoeba is present, but in rare cases, one can be infected.
The amoeba enters through the nose and then travels along the olfactory nerve to the brain. It then destroys brain tissue, causing severe inflammation and infection of the brain and its lining. While infection is rare, it is almost always fatal.
On July 7, a 26-year-old man died after contracting N. fowleri, the first time the amoeba had ever been found in a living patient. It is believed he came in contact with the amoeba while swimming in the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s first case of N. fowleri was diagnosed in 2022.
Since it was first identified in 1965, only 19 infections have been reported in Australia.
