Brain-Eating Amoeba Found in Louisiana Tap Water [POLL]
Deadly amoebas are being found in tap water -- seriously. Well this deadly amoeba can cause illness and even death. Researchers have found this in two homes in Louisiana so far. Now this is much scarier than maybe a Salmonella problem in cantaloupes or even West Nile Virus. This is a brain-eating amoeba that causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.
Here's more on it from The Los Angeles Times:
The illness, which is extremely rare, strikes when the amoeba Naegleria fowleri travels into the brain through the nose and olfactory nerve, causing fever, vomiting, seizures and coma. It usually kills its victims within a week.
Most of the people who fall ill with amoeba-borne brain infection get it after swimming in warm lakes or rivers in Southern states. But last year, two Louisianans apparently fell ill and died after irrigating their sinuses with neti pots — small pitchers used to pour warm saltwater through the nasal passages.
People who get the amoeba fall into a fever and suffer seizures, vomiting and often death within a week.
It must be noted that these two people who died poured the water through their nose for medical purposes; you cannot be infected by just drinking tap water.