Brain-Eating Amoeba Warning Issued In Florida (VIDEO)

There is a brain-eating amoeba warning issued in Florida. A South Florida boy is fighting for his life after a seemingly harmless day in the water last week.

Zachary Reyna, a seventh grader, was knee-boarding in ditch water near his house in Fort Meyers, when he contracted Naegleria fowleri, brain-eating amoeba, through his nose. Watch the WSVN video above.

When Reyna slept the whole day and night, relatives told the news station “We said, ‘Oh, he just has a virus. He just has one of those 24-hour viruses.'”

But in fact Miami Children’s Hospital doctors say the teen is suffering from primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), in which a parasitic organism destroys brain tissue and causes swelling.

Two others with Reyna did not get sick, a mother whose son was also in the water that day told News Press.

The infection is very rare. Center For Disease Control officials say there have been only 128 people infected with PAM since 1962. And although the outlook isn’t good — only three have survived — another 12-year-old’s fight with the disease should give Reyna’s family hope.

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