4. Warm Weather
During the wintertime, pathogens become inactive and experience a period of hibernation until the weather starts to warm up. As the springtime begins to warm the environment and the ground, pathogens begin to emerge and look for hosts to infect. It’s for this reason that we always seem to get sick around the change of seasons, particularly between the fall and the summertime.
While most people think about seasonal illnesses in the form of catching the flu, it could also result in infection with a brain-eating amoeba. The amoeba typically occurs in freshwater bodies, and most people don’t go swimming in frozen lakes or cold rivers in the wintertime. The cold weather also may prevent amoebas from being active, reducing the chances of infection during the winter.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that most cases of infection occur during the summer and involve people swimming in lakes while on vacation. If you visit a lake this summer, remember to take a long and nose clip to ensure that no amoeba enters your nasal passages while you swim.