Biosecurity

Special drug rushed to help brain-eating amoeba patient

 A pharmaceutical company has rushed a special drug that once saved the life of a girl who contracted a usually deadly brain-eating amoeba to a South Carolina hospital with its own patient fighting the disease.

A courier drove the drug, called miltefosine, six hours from the company’s Orlando, Florida, headquarters to Charleston as soon as the hospital called around 10 p.m. Tuesday, Profounda CEO Todd MacLaughlan told The Associated Press.

“Time is of the essence,” MacLaughlan said.

The patient in South Carolina was confirmed on Tuesday to have been exposed to Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER’-ee-uh FOW’-lur-ee), a one-celled organism that can cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.