The Department of Health in Ho Chi Minh City on September 19 confirmed the death of a six-year-old boy from Binh Tan District from the deadly brain-eating amoeba.
The young boy was already a mentally retarded child, having suffered from complications of cerebral hemorrhage, bleeding from a ruptured blood vessel in the brain, heart attacks and epileptic fits soon after birth. He was not living with his family but was alone and being taken care of by a servant.
Doctors at the Tropical Diseases Hospital in HCMC applied a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to test the boy’s blood samples and confirmed he was infected with the brain-eating amoeba.
On August 12, the six-year-old boy succumbed to the disease.
This is the second death in the country from the brain-eating amoeba, within just one month. People are concerned as to the cause of death as the boy did not play in a water pond or lived in a damp environment.
Medical experts are trying to calm down people’s concerns by stating that the rate of such infections is relatively very low.
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Another death from ‘brain-eating amoeba’
