Hypothesis: Waterfowl may be important intermediary reservoirs of Naegleria fowleri

IF 2.1 4区医学 Q3 MEDICINE, RESEARCH & EXPERIMENTAL

Medical hypotheses Pub Date : 2024-12-01 DOI:10.1016/j.mehy.2024.111541

Elise H. Mallon BS, Arnold Brown MD, FIDSA

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM) caused by Naegleria fowleri is a rare, usually fatal disease. It is thought that PAM occurs most often in southern US states because of the warmer surface waters in these states. To better understand the epidemiology of this disease we converted the raw number of cases reported in each state from 1962 to 2022, to an estimate of cases per individual at potential risk. Our relative risk estimates paint a slightly different picture, suggesting that in addition to the temperature of surface waters other epidemiologic factors are also at play, and that there may be an association between waterfowl nesting areas and risk of disease acquisition. We hypothesize that waterfowl serve as reservoirs that maintain the environmental sources of human infection. If this can be shown, control measures can be implemented to reduce the risk of disease acquisition.

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来源期刊

Medical hypotheses 医学-医学：研究与实验

CiteScore

10.60

自引率

2.10%

发文量

167

审稿时长

60 days

期刊介绍： Medical Hypotheses is a forum for ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. It will publish interesting and important theoretical papers that foster the diversity and debate upon which the scientific process thrives. The Aims and Scope of Medical Hypotheses are no different now from what was proposed by the founder of the journal, the late Dr David Horrobin. In his introduction to the first issue of the Journal, he asks ''what sorts of papers will be published in Medical Hypotheses? and goes on to answer ''Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary''. (Horrobin DF, 1975 Ideas in Biomedical Science: Reasons for the foundation of Medical Hypotheses. Medical Hypotheses Volume 1, Issue 1, January-February 1975, Pages 1-2.). Medical Hypotheses was therefore launched, and still exists today, to give novel, radical new ideas and speculations in medicine open-minded consideration, opening the field to radical hypotheses which would be rejected by most conventional journals. Papers in Medical Hypotheses take a standard scientific form in terms of style, structure and referencing. The journal therefore constitutes a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of medical and scientific communication, which ideas must eventually enter if they are to be critiqued and tested against observations.