The Florida Department of Health has confirmed a case of brain-eating amoeba. The potentially deadly infection was contracted by a swimmer who bathed in unsanitary water at a private residence in Broward County, ABC News 10 reports. The amoeba, whose scientific name is Naegleria fowlerii, can cause a rare and devastating infection of the brain, according to the Centers for Disease Control(CDC).
The confirmation of the case in Florida comes just days after 11-year-old Hannah Collins succumbed to the amoeba after swimming in a river in South Carolina. Authorities did not give the name, age or gender of the Florida individual, but said that they were currently receiving treatment in a hospital. The organism is commonly found in warm freshwater, according to the CDC, usually enters the body through the nasal passage and can cause a rare but extremely deadly infection of the brain. Of 133 people known to have been infected with the brain-eating amoeba in the United States from 1962 to 2014, only three people have survived, according to the CDC.