Canadian blinded by water-borne parasite outraged by medication cost

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A Canadian man blinded in his right eye by a water-borne parasite has hit out at the cost of drugs after spending thousands on medicine not authorized for sale in Canada.

Jon Volpe, from Tottenham, Ont., has endured excruciating pain caused by acanthmoeba keratitis (AK), a rare disease in which amoebae invade the cornea of the eye.

Volpe, 32, contracted the parasite in January 2018, just days after discovering his wife was pregnant with their first child.

The father of one believes he contracted AK while wearing contact lenses in the shower at home or at the hockey rink.

Volpe shared his story with CTVNews.ca after reading about a journalist in England who went public with his battle with the same infection earlier this month.

I started to experience pain in my eye in late January and was misdiagnosed for three weeks until I started getting proper treatment, Volpe told CTVNews.ca.