A girl in Colombia has died after contracting a brain-eating bug from a swimming pool.
Ballet dancer Stefanía Villamizar González, 10, was on vacation with her family in June when she developed earache, fever and vomiting.
Although her symptoms subsided when she returned home, two weeks later she had difficulty getting out of bed and began having convulsions. A week later she was dead.
Experts believe the disease was caused by Naegleria fowleri, also known as ‘brain-eating amoeba’, which usually lurks in freshwater, although cases have been linked to water parks and swimming pools.
It kills 97 percent of its victims, and only four Americans have ever survived.
Stefanía Villamizar González, 10, was on vacation with her family in June when she developed earache, fever and vomiting. Within weeks she died from what experts believe was Naegleria fowleri, also known as ‘brain-eating amoeba’. It lurks in fresh water and typically kills 97 percent of its victims
Stefanía’s mother, Tatiana González (pictured here), believes her daughter contracted Naegleria fowleri through her nose while playing in the water while the family was on vacation
Stefanía’s mother, Tatiana González, believes her daughter contracted the disease through her nose while playing in the water.
A close family member told local media: “We are sharing our story so that other children and families do not suffer what we are going through.”
‘We are destroyed, devastated.’
Stefanía was a tennis player, skater and ballet dancer who dreamed of becoming a gymnast.
The operations manager of the hotel where Stefanía is said to have contracted the amoeba has promised to tighten safety standards.
Local media reported no criminal charges.
An amoeba is a small single-celled animal that occurs in warm fresh water such as lakes and rivers. It cannot survive in salt water and is not contagious from person to person.
However, it has also been associated with water parks and swimming pools. In September, an Arkansas toddler died after being exposed to the bug at a splash park.
Naegleria fowleri infects humans when it enters through the nose and travels via the olfactory nerve responsible for the sense of smell to the brain, where it causes severe inflammation and damage.
Symptoms include splitting headaches, fever, nausea and vomiting. Death can occur about five days after the onset of symptoms.
Last month, health officials in Arizona issued a warning after a person of unknown age and gender was believed to have died from Naegleria fowleri.
It would be the thirtieth case since 2013 in the US.
While the rough number of deaths attributed to the amoeba in recent years is low, four deaths have already occurred this year, the most recent in Texas after the person went swimming in Lake Lyndon B. Johnson.
Previously, a Georgia resident, a two-year-old boy in Nevada and a man in Florida all died after contracting the disease.
Although typically fatal — killing 97 percent of those infected — there are sporadic stories of Americans overcoming the potentially debilitating infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).
Only four of the more than 150 people infected with the microscopic disease in the US between 1962 and 2023 survived.
The damage to brain tissue, especially to the frontal lobes and areas crucial for motor skills, cognitive functions and speech, is so severe that people who survive the infection must learn to talk and walk again.
Kali Hardig, now 22, a native of Arkansas, was just 12 years old when she was struck by Naegleria fowleri, which doctors believe she contracted at a water park.
They told her it was a ‘death sentence’ and gave her only four days to live, but ten years later she is swimming again.
Last November she became a mother for the first time. She only occasionally experiences blurred vision in her left eye due to scar tissue from the disease.
And 14-year-old Caleb Ziegelbauer, from Florida, has now also been infected with the microscopic strain a year later.
He walks a little now, but the damage to his brain means he must communicate with facial expressions and use a wheelchair.