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A Texas girl died Monday, a few days after she'd been infected with a brain-eating amoeba while she was swimming in a river in her garden.
A family member told KBMT that he thought 10-year-old Lily Mae Avant had contracted this deadly amoeba during Labor Day weekend as she was swimming in the Brazos River, which is behind his home in Whitney. She was flown to hospital on September 8th after having a headache, fever and becoming incoherent.
The girl's family told KBMT that the doctors initially thought that Avant had contracted a virus that was circulating at school. However, CNN reported that a puncture of the spine had revealed that she had contracted Naegleria fowleri, an extremely fatal organism that, says the CDC, usually lives in freshwaters such as ponds, ponds, rivers and lakes.
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The amoeba generally enters the nose before reaching the brain, where it causes a disease called amoeba primitive meningoencephalitis (PAM). Symptoms related to PAM, or a cerebral infection leading to rapid destruction of brain tissue, occur about five days after infection.
By the time the symptoms are noticeable, the disease is progressing at an alarming rate and usually leads to death within five days, according to the CDC, which estimates the mortality rate at 97%.
The agency wrote, "From 1962 to 2018, only 4 of the 145 known infected people in the United States survived."
Health professionals have recommended wearing nose clips or holding your nose when swimming in fresh water to avoid infection.
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[Featured image: Lily Mae Avant/Facebook]
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