Fighting against a rare neurological disorder in an Indian region

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            <img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/.../97bba420-92b8-11f0-911f-b1fe410b5ef0.jpg.webp 240w,..., https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/.../1536/cpsprodpb...</srcset" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/.../b1fe410b5ef0.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="Vivek R Nair A boy swimming in a pond in Kerala " class="fHZDyi">
            <span class="hqrvRC">Vivek R Nair</span>
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    <p class="bJoRPJ">On the eve of Onam, the most joyous festival in India's Kerala state, 45-year-old Sobhana lay shivering...</p>
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    <p class="bJoRPJ">"We were powerless to stop it. We learnt about the disease only after Sobhana's death," says Ajitha Kathiradath, a cousin of the victim and a prominent social worker.</p>
    <p class="bJoRPJ">In Kerala this year, more than 70 people have been diagnosed and 19 have died from the brain-eating amoeba. Patients have ranged from a three-month-old to a 92-year-old man.</p>
    <p class="bJoRPJ">Normally feeding on bacteria in warm freshwater, this single-cell organism causes a near-fatal brain infection, known as primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). It enters through the nose during swimming and rapidly destroys brain tissue.</p>
    <p class="bJoRPJ">Kerala began detecting cases in 2016, just one or two a year, and until recently nearly all were fatal. A new <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/.../>study</a> has found only 488 cases have been reported globally since 1962 - mostly in the US, Pakistan, and Australia. And 95% of the victims have died from the disease.</p>
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