Taiwanese undergraduate Lian Kao really has been blinded as a result of not changing her contact lenses.
The space between contact lenses and the eye is well suited to allowing microorganisms that don’t like oxygen to breed, and worse still, feed on the cornea. Acanthamoeba represents the main threat, and in Kao’s case six months of not removing her lenses gave it ample time to become established.
Acanthamoeba does not feed directly on human tissue. Instead it eats bacteria which live there. Bacterial infections became established on Kao’s cornea, so the amoeba had plenty to eat and get a colony started. Then it burrowed into Kao’s eyes to get at the bacteria living further in.
