US, Louisana : 4-year-old dies after brain-eating amoeba infection

Via CNN, excerpt :

"  A child has died after contracting a rare but deadly brain-eating amoeba infection while visiting a home in Louisiana, according to state health officials.

Officials believe the child is a 4-year-old boy from Mississippi who may have come in contact with the waterborne Naegleria fowleri amoeba while playing on a plastic toy water slide, St. Bernard Parish President David Peralta told CNN affiliate WWLTV. Water samples taken from the home tested positive for the amoeba, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals."

US : Brain-eating amoeba claims fourth victim who picked up parasite after swimming in lake

Article via Daily Mail, excerpt :

" A Kansas resident died this week from what was likely a rare infection by a brain-eating amoeba - the fourth such case in the U.S. this year.

State and local officials warned residents to avoid activities in warm rivers, lakes and other bodies of heated, fresh water, including ponds near power plants.

Single deaths from such infections also have been reported this summer in Florida, Louisiana and Virginia.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 120 cases - nearly all fatal - have been reported since the early 1960s.

The Kansas victim was from Sedgwick County. The person apparently went swimming in August in the city lake in Winfield, about 30 miles southeast of Wichita, said county spokeswoman Amanda Matthews.

The victim entered a hospital Aug. 19 complaining of headaches, developed breathing problems and died five days later."

US : 3 die of rare brain infection from amoeba in water

Via Yahoo News, excerpt :

" Two children and a young man have died this summer from a brain-eating amoeba that lives in water, health officials say.

This month, the rare infection killed a 16-year-old Florida girl, who fell ill after swimming, and a 9-year-old Virginia boy, who died a week after he went to a fishing day camp. The boy had been dunked the first day of camp, his mother told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Those cases are consistent with past cases, which are usually kids — often boys — who get exposed to the bug while swimming or doing water sports in warm ponds or lakes.

The third case, in Louisiana, was more unusual. It was a young man whose death in June was traced to the tap water he used in a device called a neti pot. It's a small teapot-shaped container used to rinse out the nose and sinuses with salt water to relieve allergies, colds and sinus trouble.

Health officials later found the amoeba in the home's water system. The problem was confined to the house; it wasn't found in city water samples, said Dr. Raoult Ratard, Louisiana's state epidemiologist.

The young man, who was only identified as in his 20s and from southeast Louisiana, had not been swimming nor been in contact with surface water, Ratard added.

He said only sterile, distilled, or boiled water should be used in neti pots.

The illness is extremely rare. About 120 U.S. cases — almost all of them deaths — have been reported since the amoeba was identified in the early 1960s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About three deaths are reported each year, on average. Last year, there were four.

There are no signs that cases are increasing, said Jonathan Yoder, who coordinates surveillance of waterborne diseases for the CDC.

The amoeba — Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL-er-eye) — gets up the nose, burrows up into the skull and destroys brain tissue. It's found in warm lakes and rivers during the hot summer months, mostly in the South."