A pharmaceutical company has rushed a special drug that once saved the life of a girl who contracted a usually deadly brain-eating amoeba to a South Carolina hospital with its own patient fighting the disease. A courier drove the drug, called miltefosine, six hours from the company's Orlando, Florida, headquarters to Charleston as soon as the hospital called around 10 p.m. Tuesday, Profounda CEO Todd MacLaughlan told The Associated Press. "Time is of the essence," MacLaughlan said. The patient in South Carolina was confirmed on Tuesday to have been exposed to Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER'-ee-uh FOW'-lur-ee), a one-celled organism that can cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Between 2006 and 2015 there have been 37 infections in the United States. Only three people have been recorded to have survived exposure. Miltefosine was used to treat one of the survivors â€" a 12-year-old girl in Arkansas, the CDC said. Miltefosine was originally developed to fight cancer in the 1980s. It also helps fight leishmaniasis , a disease cause by a parasite transmitted through sand flea bites in tropical climates, MacLaughlan said. This is just the second time his company has sent the specialized drug that costs about $48,000 for a round of treatment to a hospital. It was delivered as capsules, MacLaughlan said.
