Parasite that Zombifies Its Host Found in Great Salt Lake

By Bulletin Staff

Scientists working in the Great Salt Lake have discovered a species of parasite that invades its host through the nasal passages, makes its way into the host’s brain and turns the victim into a zombie, according to a report from the National Center for Zombie Diseases (NCZD).

In a notice sent out through the Centers for Disease Control’s Zombie Alert Network, the NCZD reports that the newly discovered parasite is a relative of Naegleria fowleri, better known as the “brain-eating ameba.” Found in soils and warm fresh water, Naegleria fowleri can infect a person when they get water with the ameba up their nose, and it usually causes a fatal infection.

Researchers studying parasitic microorganisms in the Great Salt Lake discovered the newfound species in August when a biologist on their team became infected with the ameba after swimming in the lake. An autopsy following the unfortunate scientist’s zombification and destruction revealed a “swarm” of the microscopic creatures in the zombified researcher’s brain.

The team dubbed the species Naegleria lacussalia arnhemi, or Arnhem’s Salt Lake Naegleria, after their zombified colleague, Nolan Arnhem, of Eindhoven, Holland.

Like Naegleria fowleri, scientists believe that the Arnhem ameba has the unusual ability to travel through olfactory epithelium, tissue running along the roof of the nasal cavity. The ameba uses the epithelium like a secret tunnel to sneak into the brain through the blood brain barrier, which normally protects the human brain from parasites and other infections that travel through the blood.

Once in the brain, the parasite undergoes a series of biochemical changes that cause it to emit a variant of the zombie virus, which then quickly infects the host’s brain. The effect is rapid, with death and zombification coming within hours.

Arnhem’s Swim of Death

Despite the high salinity of its waters, Great Salt Lake provides a home for a variety of parasites, including a tapeworm thought to develop in the lake’s plentiful brine shrimp and subsequently infect birds that eat the shrimp.

It was this very tapeworm that was the subject of Arnhem’s latest research. Arnhem had been studying the lake and its microscopic inhabitants for more than 10 years. He joined the team of researchers last year to assist in their survey of the lake’s parasites.

According to Kim Ravelli, the team’s leader, Arnhem, 37, had been swimming in the lake at the end of a day of research at the team’s camp on Antelope Island. Later in the evening, he reported feeling unwell and retired to his tent.

Colleagues checking on him later found Arnhem unconscious and with a high fever. Before they could arrange medical evacuation for the scientist back to Salt Lake City, Arnhem went into cardiac arrest, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

The research team left Arnhem sealed in his tent while they spoke with law enforcement to report the death and arrange for transport of the body. However, the team soon heard moaning coming from Arnhem’s tent.

Thinking that the Dutchman hadn’t died after all, a colleague, Aziz Gaier, rushed to enter the tent and was promptly attacked by the now reanimated Arnhem.

Arnhem bit Gaier on the ankle, but a quick-thinking Ravelli, understanding immediately what had transpired, was able to pull Gaier out of the tent, seal Arnhem up again, and then amputate Gaier’s leg below the knee with a machete to prevent the spread of any zombie infection.

What started as a medical evacuation and turned into a cadaver recovery now again became a medevac, for Gaier, as well as a zombie disposal situation, for the late Arnhem.

First responders, including members of the Salt Lake City Police Department’s Special Weapons and Undead Neutralization Team (SWUNT), arrived by helicopter within an hour of the first zombie report. Gaier was flown to Salt Lake City General Hospital, where he was isolated in the facility’s Undead Containment Wing until doctors confirmed that he was not infected.

Meanwhile, the SWUNT officers dispatched Arnhem and arranged transport of his zombie husk to the local lab of the National Center for Zombie Diseases, where Ravelli and her team collaborated with the center’s own staff to autopsy Arnhem and analyze the parasitic ameba in the remains of the late Dutchman’s brain matter.

Wrong Place, Wrong Brine

Having established that Naegleria lacussalia arnhemi was the guilty parasite, Ravelli’s team returned to their camp and, carefully, took samples of the water and various algae and brine found in the area where Arnhem had been swimming. The team’s analysis confirmed that Naegleria is present in a small number of brine found in the area.

“Poor Nolan was in the wrong place with the wrong brine,” Ravelli said in announcing the team’s findings.

Authorities closed the area to campers and marine traffic while a team of state and federal health and wildlife officials investigate how widespread the parasite is in the lake. The area reopened in early October, although state officials are warning visitors to Antelope Island about the risks of the zombie parasite and recommending against swimming in the zone where Arnhem met his hellish fate.

By way of reassuring the public, officials have highlighted that this is the first known case of a zombification due to Naegleria lacussalia arnhemi, and they point out that the related Naegleria fowleri only infects about three people in the United States in any given year, although those infections typically result in death.

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