Sounds like a horror movie but it is real.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on Friday that an Omaha, Nebraska child had died from an infection that was caused by a “brain-eating amoeba” that lives in a river where the child was swimming.
It is believed that the child was infected while swimming on Sunday in the Elkhorn River, near Omaha.
The child’s identity has not been revealed.
The CDC confirmed that the amoeba, known as naegleria fowleri, was found in the child’s system, according to the Douglas County Department of Health in Omaha.
The infection, though rare, can occur when waters containing the amoeba spread to the nose of swimmers or divers in lakes or rivers. Houston-area tap water was found to contain the amoeba in 2020.
This is the second reported death this summer in the Midwest from the infection, which is called primary amebic meningoencephalitis. The infection is fatal in 97% of cases, according to statistics.
Symptoms of the infection may include fever, headache, nausea or vomiting, progressing to a stiff neck, loss of balance, hallucinations and seizures.
A person in Missouri also succumbed to the infection in July, caught presumably after swimming at the Lake of Three Fires in Iowa.