KARACHI: The Sindh health ministry has warned the local authorities to expedite their efforts to thwart possible dangers of Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, as water in most parts of the city contained little or no chlorine, it emerged on Thursday.

Officials said the ongoing monsoon could be heavier, thus potentially pose greater dangers to human life by providing breeding grounds to lethal Naegleria germs. Ironically, the provincial government itself has not released funds and resources required for efficient functioning of a committee formed last year to check the spread of Naegleria. The committee eventually went dormant when it found no support from the government.

Initially, the committee worked on its own and shared its primary findings with the media, which shockingly revealed that most neighbourhoods of the city were being supplied with water not chlorinated at all.

Chlorination is the key method to kill the organism and keep the deadly disease at bay. Another way is to use boiled water while cleaning nose as the germ enters through the nasal cavity of its victim and attacks the brain.

The lethal disease killed three people last year while it has caused a death already in the city this year, said the officials. They warned that with the monsoon picking up pace, its germs had got breeding grounds in the shape of stagnant rainwater and water stored in tyres at shops and threatened life as it did in 2015, when more than a dozen people died because of it. The disease killed 14 people in 2014.

The committee, called the focal group for Naegleria, during its initial activities in 2015 collected samples of water and results showed that more than half of the city was supplied with water chlorinated much less than the desired level. The teams even found no chlorination at all at more than 90 per cent of the pumping houses of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board risking the lives of millions in the teeming metropolis.

Officials said the committee was provided with no funds for the vehicles and fuel required for its mobility to collect water samples from the length and breadth of the metropolis. The work has virtually come to a halt because of such resource constraints.

Officials earlier said the organism could potentially approach the victim’s brain through the nose during ablution at home or in mosques where water supplies were not safely chlorinated or boiled.

The dangerous amoeba, which survives on the bacteria in warm waters and enters human brain through the nasal cavity and eats up its tissues, could only be decimated by proper chlorination or boiling of water.

Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is defined in medical literature as a rare but typically fatal infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba found in rivers, lakes, springs, drinking water networks and poorly chlorinated swimming pools.

The disease attacks a healthy person three to seven days after exposure to contaminated water with symptoms of headache and slight fever, in some cases associated with sore throat and rhinitis (commonly called stuffy nose).

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2017