An amoeba is a tiny single-celled creature that can move about freely. There are many different types of amoeba, most of them harmless. Amoebiasis is a disease that affects several parts of the body and is caused by a dangerous kind of amoeba. The disease starts with an infection called amoebic dysentery in the wide, lower part of the intestine and may spread to case severe damage to the intestine. It may then lead to local areas of damage called amoebic abscesses in the liver, lungs, and brain and elsewhere in the body.
 

Symptoms

Symptoms are often mild and vague, but there is persistent low-grade tummy discomfort and sickness, and mild diarrhoea with blood and mucus. There is sometimes pain on even gentle pressure over the liver, just under the ribs on the right side. If the disease has caused liver abscesses, there will be fever and weakness, pain in the right shoulder, nausea, jaundice, loss of appetite and loss of weight. Sometimes an abscess may burst upwards through the diaphragm into the lung and the contents may be coughed up.

Causes

You get amoebiasis by swallowing the amoeba on fruit and vegetables contaminated by human faeces. This is especially common in parts of the world where human excreta are used as fertiliser. Amoebic dysentery can also be spread by anal sex or directly from person to person when personal hygiene is poor. The amoebae burrow into the wall of the intestine to cause small abscesses, and then little, ragged, undermined ulcers. From there they enter the veins of the intestine and are carried to the liver. If enough of them reach the liver, they may cause large abscesses full of a chocolate-brown or yellow pus consisting of broken-down liver tissue.

Treatment