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Some parts of Texas were warned of possible contamination of the water supply by naegleria fowleri.
People somewhere in Texas, USA, were warned to stop using tap water because it could be contaminated with a deadly brain-eating microbe.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality alerted the Brazosport Water Authority late Friday about possible contamination of its water supply by naegleria fowleri.
The authority initially warned eight communities in Houston not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets, but on Saturday it lifted that warning everywhere but Lake Jackson.
The authority’s source of water is the Brazos River.
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The authority said in a statement that it was unclear how long it would be before tap water was safe again.
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living microscopic amoeba, or a single-celled living organism commonly found in warm fresh water and soil, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, from where it travels to the brain, and can cause a rare and debilitating disease called primary amebic meningoencephalitis.
The infection is often fatal and occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places, such as lakes and rivers.
In very rare cases, naegleria infections can also occur when contaminated water from other sources (such as improperly chlorinated pool water or heated and contaminated tap water) enters the nose.
Contamination of public water systems treated in the US by the microbe is rare but not unheard of.
According to the CDC website, the first deaths from naegleria fowleri found in tap water from public drinking water systems in the US occurred in southern Louisiana in 2011 and 2013. The microbe was also found in 2003 in an untreated geothermal drinking water system in Arizona, as well as in disinfected public drinking water supplies in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 2008 in Pakistan.
