ORLANDO, Fla. āA South Florida boy has survived a rare brain-eating amoeba that kills most people, aided in part because a hard-to-get drug to fight the infection is made by a company based in Orlando where he was hospitalized, doctors said Tuesday.
Sebastian DeLeon came to the hospital two weeks ago with sensitivity to light and a headache so severe the 16-year-old couldnāt tolerate anyone touching him, doctors at Florida Hospital for Children said at a news conference.
Hospital staffers had been trained to look for the amoeba, which often is contracted through the nose when swimming in freshwater lakes or rivers. The infection has a fatality rate of 97 percent and another boy died from it at the same hospital two years ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says only four out of 138 people have survived being infected with the amoeba in the past 50 years, including DeLeon, according to the hospitalās doctors.
āIt is so rare that a lot of times we donāt think of it and thatās where a delay occurs in starting a treatment,ā said Dr. Dennis Hernandez, head of the hospitalās emergency department. āIt wasnāt very clear-cut and Iām still shaking about the whole case.ā
DeLeon, who had worked as a camp counselor in Broward County, was infected in South Florida. He began having a severe headache two weeks ago on the same day his family traveled to Orlando for a vacation. His parents took him to the emergency room at Florida Hospital almost a day and a half later when his headache worsened.
Acting on a hunch, emergency room doctors ordered a spinal tap to test for meningitis, and lab scientist Sheila Black found the amoeba moving in the spinal fluid. Doctors lowered the teenās body temperature to 33 degrees, induced a coma, inserted a breathing tube and gave him a cocktail of drugs that help kill the amoeba.
One of the drugs, miltefosine, isnāt readily available at most hospitals.
āWhen the family came to me, I had to tell them to say their goodbyes,ā said Dr. Humberto Liriano, who choked up as he described the case. āI had to tell them, āTell him everything you would want to tell your child because I donāt know if he will wake up.ā ā
Luck was on DeLeonās side since the manufacturer of miltefosine is based in Orlando, and a shipment got to the hospital quickly.
āThis infection can be rapidly fatal. Minutes count and having the drug rapidly at hand ā¦ is crucial,ā said Dr. Federico Laham, a hospital pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases.
Because the amoeba infection is so rare, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention typically flies the drug miltefosine to the patient. But in DeLeonās case, a hospital pharmacist called the chief executive of Profounda Inc., the Orlando-based company that manufactures the drug and the CEOās son dropped it off at the hospital within minutes.
DeLeon is expected to recover with therapy. He is still at the hospital and needs a walker to get around, doctors said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Hereās why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.