https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox44news.com/news/local-news/local/family-says-10-year-old-valley-mills-girl-has-died-from-brain-eating-amoeba/amp/

Brazos River

Woods Ag said:

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Noted... pretty much always going to include this then.

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Even then you're looking at very poor odds. There isn't good data regarding how often this infection happens because it likely goes undiagnosed at times, but in the data that I am aware of there have been less than 20 confirmed survivors world wide. There have also been less than 1000 confirmed cases world wide

Here's a good article on the amoeba.

https://www.livescience.com/amp/66083-why-brain-eating-amoeba-is-deadly.html?fbclid=IwAR3xiygYCAoEN4WOXY0FXGUtsU0cdB-Gam2eLW7p6VkGp8hBgHkWn0IFMdI

BurrOak said:

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Here's a good article on the amoeba.

https://www.livescience.com/amp/66083-why-brain-eating-amoeba-is-deadly.html?fbclid=IwAR3xiygYCAoEN4WOXY0FXGUtsU0cdB-Gam2eLW7p6VkGp8hBgHkWn0IFMdI

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From the article:
It is important to keep in mind that millions of people are exposed to N. fowleri and never fall ill. Those who study this amoeba don't know why a tiny subset of exposed individuals develop primary amoebic meningoencephalitis; they may have a genetic difference that makes them more vulnerable to the infection, or may have forcefully inhaled an overwhelming amount of the parasite.


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A positive takeaway from the article is that millions of people are exposed and never fall ill and that it may be genetic .

I have 8 & 10 year old daughters and we were swimming in Whitney all Labor Day weekend. Scary stuff.

Tragic especially when you consider how extremely rare this is...

CDC graphs on number of cases nationally per year.

CDC graph of number of recorded cases EVER by state

I used to be paranoid about this because I thought I'd just one of those things got in the right place you were doomed, but it seems like that things have to happen just perfectly wrong and you have to have some predisposition to be highly vulnerable to them. I have to wonder how many millions of those things I've come in contact with given all the times I've swam and played in water that was surely loaded with them.

You submerge your nose in still, warm, untreated water?

It doesn't have to be still. I used to play, wade, swim in ditches and stock tanks and ponds, rivers and creeks and all sorts of water as a kid, or even occasionally still as an adult, and these things can grow in flowing water too, on the bottom or in more still areas. Those things are present in most freshwater in Texas, just in different densities in different areas, but typically in bottom sediment.