<Anchor> A
case of 'Fowler's free amoeba', which causes fatal meningitis, has been confirmed in Korea for the first time.
A man in his 50s who returned from Thailand died after being infected with the amoeba.
This is reporter Shin Yong-sik's report.
<Reporter>
Mr. A, a man in his 50s who was dispatched from Thailand as an education official, briefly returned to Korea on the 10th.
Mr. A, who complained of a headache before returning home, was transferred to the emergency room the next day, and died on the 21st, ten days later.
Medical staff detected the gene of 'Fowler's free amoeba', which causes meningitis, in Mr. A's cerebrospinal fluid.
Fowler's free amoeba enters through the nose when swimming in warm lakes or rivers and travels along the olfactory nerve to the brain, although unclean water can also cause infection.
Prior to his return, Mr. A had been on several business trips to remote villages in northeast Thailand.
[Mr. A's bereaved family: It is said that amoebas usually enter the nose while swimming, but the baby's father is not a swimmer.
It's a bit frustrating, because I don't know how it got infected.]
Fowler's free amoeba is very rare, with 381 confirmed cases worldwide for 80 years.
As a result of an investigation of domestic water sources, the Fowler free amoeba gene was found in six places, but this is the first time that an infected case has been confirmed.
It is not spread from person to person, but the fatality rate is 95-98%.
[Shin Ho-joon/Professor of Microbiology Department, Ajou University Medical School: It penetrates the mucous membrane directly through the nose.
I don't go anywhere else, I only go to my brain.
Officially, there are 380 cases, and 98% of them are dead.
3-4 people lived, but the living people were also found early…
.]
If not diagnosed and treated in time, symptoms progress quickly enough to cause death within 7 days.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends using saline when rinsing the nose to prevent Fowler free amoeba infection.
(Video coverage: Seol-Hwan Seol, Video editing: Hye-Young Choi, Source: CDC, USA)