Zachary Reyna, the 12-year-old Latino in critical condition at Miami Children Hospital who was infected by a "brain eating" amoeba, lost the battle against his disease on August 24, his parents announced on Facebook.
Despite one report from the doctors caring for the south Florida native saying that he could recover, Reyna lost his life at around 1:54 p.m. on Saturday, El Nuevo Herald reported.
"The battle is over for Zach, but he won the war," wrote some family members on the Facebook page made to support the child.
According to CNN, Reyna's doctors prescribed an experimental drug to treat against the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri. The same drug was used to treat Kali Hardig, a 12-year-old girl in Arkansas, who became the third known person in the past 50 years to have survived the deadly parasite.
"It is one of the worst existing infections, where 99 percent of those infected lose their lives," explained doctor Dirk Haselow from the Arkansas Health Department to WMCTV, a CNN affiliate.
The Naegleria fowleri amoeba has now infected two people in less than one month. According to doctors quoted by HuffPost Voces, the amoeba enters the body from the nose until it lodges in the brain and causes irreversible damage.
They also affirm that in the last year, the parasite has taken the lives of six children and teenagers in the United States, a number that exceeds the average of reported cases so far, which is 23 victims from 1995 to 2004.
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