The governor of Texas issued a disaster declaration on Sunday for a Gulf Coast county where a 6-year-old boy died after being infected by a brain-eating amoeba and the organism was found in the water supply. In early September, Brazoria County health officials alerted the city of Lake Jackson, Texas, about 56 miles south of Houston, about a boy who was hospitalized with the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri. The boy’s family believed he had been exposed to the single-celled organism from a water hose at his home or from a city splash pad, where water spurts up from the ground, city officials said in a news release. The city closed the splash pad, and multiple tests were conducted with help from the C.D.C. Three of the 11 samples collected tested “preliminary positive.” Those samples were from a “dead end fire hydrant downtown,” a “splash pad storage tank” and the boy’s “home hose bib,” according to the city.

Source: New York Times September 28, 2020 01:07 UTC