I read this article with interest. The headline referring to an eye devouring amoeba that can turn contact lens wearers is a little over dramatic. It seems the issue is down to people that don’t clean their contact lenses according to the instructions. There have been cases of people cleaning their contact lenses and contact lens cases in tap water which it seems can leave them exposed to an Acanthamoeba parasite. The resulting infection can cause blindness. The number of people affected by the parasite is small and it seems isolated to those that clean their lenses incorrectly.
Whilst I am sympathetic to those that have contracted it, I do wonder at some people’s intelligence. As someone who wore contact lenses for more than 15 years, I never cleaned them or stored them in anything but the sterile saline solution provided with the lenses. I was well aware that tap water was not an adequate method of cleaning either the lenses or the cases. It seems to me a lack of education on the part of those who provide the contact lenses.