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Texas woman dies from brain-eating amoeba after cleaning sinuses with tap water (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 5 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

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The woman contracted a fatal infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba and died eight days after developing symptoms.

A Texas woman died from an infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba days after she cleaned her sinuses using tap water, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case report.

The woman, an otherwise healthy 71-year-old, developed "severe neurologic symptoms," including fever, headache and an altered mental status, four days after she filled a nasal irrigation device with tap water from her RV's water system at a Texas campsite, the CDC report said.

She was treated for primary amebic meningoencephalitis — a brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, often referred to as the "brain-eating amoeba." Despite treatment, the woman experienced seizures and died from the infection eight days after she developed symptoms, the agency said.

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[–] GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

In the US, the labels suggest using distilled water or to boil tap water.

Some water is great in TX, however this could have been well water that wasn't treated the same way as a city. Ive also lived on Louisiana, where they would issue boil advisories for tap water because the swamp water could have potentially mixed in with the water going into the treatment facility, increasing the chance of amoeba. It also depends on the pipe system being used. Given how expensive it is, cities don't regularly change out all the pipes unless there's a break in the water main and homeowners also don't normally change out piped until a problem is noticed. If there's a leaking pipe that you aren't aware of, there could be contaminants making their way into the cracks.

The article says that this wasn't just tap water, but tap water from her RV. So if she hadn't cleaned the pipes or water storage tank in the RV, then the bug that killed her could have been on the RV side and not the tap.

I normally see a couple articles every year about people dying from a brain eating bacteria or amoeba from using tap water in a nasal rinse. It's just safer to use distilled water, so that you know that nothing is in it.