CDC: Peak season for brain-eating amoeba

How do you keep a hypochondriac from swimming?

A single-celled zombie stalking a human brain.

Tell them brain-eating amoeba’s have killed three people this summer.

Unfortunately, this medical curio is true, says CNN, citing the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control.

More unfortunate, the brain-eating micro-varmits feast in warm Southern waters — the deaths this year have occurred in Florida, Louisiana and Virginia.

The difficult to pronounce and rare single-celled organism — Naegleria fowleri — is 95% lethal, but usually only kills a few people each year. Eight died in 1980.

The amoebas enter the human body through the nose after an individual swims or dives into warm fresh water, like ponds, lakes, rivers and even hot springs, writes CNN.

July, August and September are peak season.

Scientists speculate that the lack of certain antibodies could be why some get infected while others swimming in the same body of water don’t.

Once the amoeba enters the nose, it works its way up into the brain and eats neurons.

Symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting and neck stiffness. Later symptoms include confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, loss of balance, seizures and hallucinations.

Death occurs about a week later.

The CDC offers these tips, but my suggestion is to only swim in Clorox diluted with cold water.