US: Texas issues disaster order after brain-eating amoeba death
The amoeba kills the majority of people who contract the water-dwelling Naegleria fowleri, though cases are rare.
Officials are urging Lake Jackson residents to boil tap water for drinking and cooking [File: Alastair Pike / AFP]
28 Sep 2020
The state of Texas has stepped up efforts to counter the threat posed by a brain-eating amoeba detected in the water supply of a coastal county that led to the death of a six-year-old boy earlier this month.
“You don’t hear about this stuff until it happens to you. You don’t think you’ll be that 1 in 72 million until it happens to you,” Maria Castillo, the mother of the boy who died after contracting a brain infection caused by the amoeba, wrote in a recent Facebook post.
Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday issued a disaster declaration for B...
