Brain-Eating Amoeba Water Contamination In North Carolina Water Park Blamed On Inadequate Sanitation System

Unusually high levels of the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri were found in a North Carolina water park. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blamed the appearance of the potentially deadly organism to the state's unsuccessful water sanitation system.

Eighteen-year-old Lauren Seitz of Westerville, Ohio died a week after coming home from a rafting trip at the National Whitewater Center near Charlotte, North Carolina, CNN reported. Seitz possibly acquired the brain-eating amoeba after the raft she was in overturned on the rapids.

Dr. Jennifer Cope, an infectious disease physician at the CDC, said the deadly organism enters the body through contaminated water forced up the nose and then travels up the nasal passages to the brain. The brain-eating amoeba causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM, where the brain's tissue gets infected and usually ends in death, the CDC wrote.

The brain-eating amoeba isn't acquired through swallowing contaminated water, with infection only occurring from nasal ingestion. Symptoms, which include fever, nausea, vomiting and headache, appear five days after nasal exposure. Death usually takes place 18 days after nasal ingestion.

Inadequate Water Sanitation System

All 11 samples taken from the whitewater center tested positive for the brain-eating amoeba. According to Cope, adding chlorine to the water didn't impede the organism's growth. Instead, it thrived because the water's debris and dirt soaked up the chlorine and didn't kill the brain-eating amoeba, CNN noted.

Another sanitation process that uses UV light is also ineffective. This is because the UV light cannot deactivate the organisms as the rays pass through the water.

Cope noted that the National Whitewater Center is one of the three systems in the United States that do not require regular testing for dangerous pathogens like the Naegleria fowleri amoeba. Local health officials said this is because the whitewater center is considered as a river even though it is constructed with concrete channels that recirculate millions of gallons of water.

Unregulated Whitewater Center

Mecklenburg County Medical Director Dr. Stephen Keener said the unregulated status of the National Whitewater Center may change soon. The system could be allowing the accumulation of warm water on hot days, an environment which the Naegleria fowleri amoeba thrives in.

Brian Walesa, director of Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois said water sports encourage the brain-eating amoeba. The organism lives in the sediment or the water sources' floor. People are more exposed to the pathogen when sand is kicked below or when they swim deeper, the Oak Lawn Patch noted.