Brain-Eating Amoeba That Killed Texas Boy, 6, Found In City Water

LAKE JACKSON, TX — Residents of a Texas Gulf Coast community are urged to continue boiling their tap water after confirmation that a 6-year-old boy’s fatal infection of naegleria fowleri, an organism commonly called brain-eating amoeba, was traced to the water supply in that small city.

Josiah McIntyre’s Sept. 8 death to the rare but deadly microbe triggered an investigation into the safety of the water supply in Lake Jackson, a community of about 27,000 residents about 60 miles south of Houston.

The boy’s family told health officials they believed he had been exposed to the single-cell organism while playing at a neighborhood splash pad and with a home garden hose.

Tests have since confirmed the presence of the deadly microbe at the Lake Jackson Civic Center Splash Pad, which was immediately closed, and at a dead-end fire hydrant near it, as well as on the bib of the family’s garden hose.

The Brazosport Water Authority, which is based in Lake Jackson and supplies water to seven other Brazoria County communities, has lifted a systemwide “do not use” order. However, Lake Jackson Mayor Bob Sipple urged residents to boil water used for cooking, bathing or drinking while the water distribution system is flushed and disinfected.

An initial test by the Brazosport Water Authority for brain-eating amoeba came back negative for the organism, but the city ordered more elaborate tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Brazoria County health agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Additional testing was requested on Sept. 17, but water collection from several Lake Jackson locations was delayed until Sept. 22 because of Tropical Storm Beta, KHOU reported.

The CDC’s test results, which came in Friday, said the organism was found in three of 11 locations tested — the splash pad,the fire hydrant and the family garden hose.

“We’re surprised, just as everybody is, that the tests came back for the system,” City Manager Modesto Mundo told KHOU.

The brain-eating amoeba that claimed the boy’s life is a rare but deadly organism, according to the CDC. It thrives in warm lakes, rivers, hot springs and in the soil, entering the body through the nose. In “very rare instances,” though, brain-eating amoeba infections occur when contaminated water from other sources, including inadequately chlorinated swimming pool water and contaminated tap water) enters the nose.

“The impact of this is severe,” Sipple said in an emergency request to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “The potential damages include: sickness and death.”

The illness the organism causes, primary amebic meningoencephalitis, is almost always fatal, killing 90 to 95 percent of those who become infected, the CDC says. Five people in North America, four of them in the United States, have survived the illness since 1978, according to the agency.

Because the organism enters the body through the nose, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality cautioned Lake Jackson residents to take extra care to ensure they don’t splash water up their noses while bathing, showering, washing their faces or swimming to prevent brain-eating amoeba from entering their bodies. Among other precautions, parents were encouraged to keep their children away from hoses, sprinklers or any toy or device that may accidentally squirt water, and to empty and scrub hard plastic and blow-up pools after every use and allow them to thoroughly dry.

Although contamination by the microbe of a treated public water system is rare in the United States, the first country’s first deaths from naegleria fowleri found in tap water occurred in southern Louisiana in 2011 and 2013, according to the CDC. The agency said the organism was also found in an untreated geothermal well-supplied drinking water system in Arizona in 2003.