A Texas woman died from a rare brain infection after she flushed her sinuses with tap water, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
It’s unclear when the woman died, but the report was in the most recent weekly mortality report from the agency.
The woman, an otherwise healthy 71-year-old, used a nasal irrigation device she had filled with tap water from her RV’s water system at a campsite and flushed her sinuses. Within days, she developed “severe neurologic symptoms” including fever, headache and an altered mental status.
She received treatment for the infection — primary amebic meningoencephalitis — which is caused by Naegleria fowleri, often called the “brain-eating amoeba,” the CDC said. But even after treatment, she started experiencing seizures and died less than two weeks after exposure.
A CDC laboratory conducted tests and found the amoeba in the woman’s cerebrospinal fluid.
The one-celled amoeba lives in freshwater lakes, rivers and hot springs.
“If water containing the ameba goes up the nose and to the brain, it can cause [the] infection,” the CDC said. While most infections occur during recreational freshwater activities, people trying to clean their sinuses are advised to use distilled, sterilized or boiled — and then cooled — water to avoid infection or illness.
Investigators found the water tank was filled before the woman bought the RV, but it was also hooked up to the municipal water supply at the campsite.
The CDC said the death rate of infection is roughly 100%, but fewer than 10 people typically contract it every year. There were 164 cases reported in the US between 1962 and 2023, but only four people survived.
