Warning lifted after Texas child dies from brain-eating microbe found in tap water
LAKE JACKSON, Texas (AP) — Texas officials lifted a warning for all Houston-area communities to stop using tap water because it might be tainted with a deadly brain-eating microbe.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality warned the Brazosport Water Authority late Friday of the potential contamination of its water supply by naegleria fowleri.
The authority initially warned eight communities not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets, but it lifted that warning for all communities. The advisory also was canceled for two state prisons and Dow Chemical's massive Freeport works.
The authority’s water source is the Brazos River.
Earlier this month, 6-year-old Josh McIntyre died after contracting the microbe. The investigation into his death led to the detection of the brain-eating amoeba after heath officials conducted water sample tests, Lake Jackson City Manager Modesto Mundo said in a news release Saturday.
Three of 11 sample tests indicated preliminary positive results for the brain-eating microbe, with one sample coming from the boy's home hose bib, Mundo said.
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living microscopic amoeba, or single-celled living organism commonly found in warm freshwater and soil, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose. From there it travels to the brain and can cause a rare and debilitating disease called primary amebic meningoencephalitis.
The infection is usually fatal and typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places such as lakes and rivers. In very rare instances, naegleria infections may also occur when contaminated water from other sources (such as inadequately chlorinated swimming pool water or heated and contaminated tap water) enters the nose.
The contamination of U.S. treated public water systems by the microbe is rare but not unheard of. According to the CDC website, the first deaths from naegleria fowleri found in tap water from treated U.S. public drinking water systems occurred in southern Louisiana in 2011 and 2013. The microbe also was found in 2003 in an untreated geothermal well-supplied drinking water system in Arizona, as well as in disinfected public drinking water supplies in Australia in the 1970s and '80s and in 2008 in Pakistan.
LATEST STORIES:
- Two arrested after allegedly 'wreaking havoc' on drivers in downtown Tulsa
- Amazon Prime Day: 7 deals to watch for in 2020
- NBC News to air special coverage, analysis of presidential debate
- Chrissy Teigen hospitalized after excessive bleeding during pregnancy
- Thunder Vote event helping Oklahomans get registered to vote