Health

Brain-eating amoebas discovered in second Louisiana location

Find comes weeks after same strain, which lives in local water supplies, killed a child in a different part of the state

John Neilson, administrator for DeSoto Parish's water supply, talks to Al Jazeera about the Naegleria fowleri amoeba.
Al Jazeera

A rare but deadly amoeba called Naegleria fowleri has been discovered in a Louisiana parish's water supply that serves an estimated 6,000 people. The discovery comes just weeks after a boy died from being infected by the same type of amoeba the opposite side of the state. 

State workers are checking records of more than 80 water-treatment systems that use the same disinfection process as St. Bernard Parish, where a 4-year-old boy died in August after being infected, and DeSoto Parish, where the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said the amoeba was found in five locations.

The two parishes have one thing in common — their water supplies are disinfected with a chlorine-ammonia mixture called chloramines, rather than the straight chlorine used in the nearly 1,300 others water supplies across Louisiana, said J.T. Lane, an official from Louisiana's Office of Public Health.

Chloramines are used — nearly always as a secondary disinfectant — because they produce fewer byproducts than chlorine and they last longer, so water stays safe at the farthest reaches of a system, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Lane said he's working with the CDC and the EPA on a chlorine audit of the 85 or so Louisiana water systems that use chloramines as the primary disinfectant, and discussing "long-term implications for the country." 

There is a minimum chlorine level for water as it leaves treatment plants. But across a water system, under EPA regulations, chlorine "cannot be undetectable in more than 5 percent of the samples each month," for two months in a row, Lane said. 

However, State Sen. J.P. Morrell said the current vague recommendations for a trace of chlorine should be changed to specific numbers.

"Since the only requirement we've put on parishes is trace levels and 'trace' is subjective, I don't think looking at past reports will provide the information we need," Morrell said.

Every spot sampled in the DeSoto Parish had some chlorine, ranging from 0.05 to 0.4 milligrams per liter, DHH spokeswoman Olivia Watkins said.

Health officials in Australia, where the amoeba was first identified, say the chlorine level should be at least 0.5 milligrams per liter throughout a water system to control the amoeba.

After a spate of cases during the 1960s in Australia, no Naegleria fowleri have been recorded since 1981, according to the government website of Queensland, a state in northeastern Australia.

'Concern and panic'

Felicia Jordan, a resident of DeSoto Parish, said there's nothing better for her family than being out in the country, but news of a deadly amoeba in the water system has her concerned for her children.

"I don't let them drink from the water. There's some kind of amoeba, and it's killing people," Jordan told Al Jazeera's Ben Lemoine.

A DeSoto Parish woman died in 2011 from the Naegleria fowleri, and state health officials subsequently conducted tests in her water district. Those tests came back positive.

The amoeba can only enter through the nose and causes brainswelling as it destroys tissue, experts say. 

"It's very, very difficult to get this infection of this amoeba," said John Neilson, administrator for DeSoto Water District No. 1. "Unfortunately it's very, very fatal once you do get it."

The system's water comes from the Toledo Bend reservoir on the Texas border and is treated at a facility nearby.  

While there's no way to know how the amoeba got into the system, health officials assert that since it can't cause harm if swallowed, the water is completely safe to drink. 

However, they did distribute pamphlets with information on shower temperature and other tips for those wanting to take extra precautions.

Health officials in DeSoto are also taking chemical precautions. For the next 60 days, water officials will be treating the system with chlorine, not just chloramines, to kill the amoeba and then they'll come back and re-test the water.

State health officials say there are no known current cases of illness related to the discovery in DeSoto or elsewhere in Louisiana.

Morrell, meanwhile, said chlorine levels in every parish and municipal water system statewide should be checked immediately.

"This public health issue has created concern and panic, and it has undermined public confidence in government's ability to perform one of its most basic functions — the delivery of safe drinking water to homes," Morrell wrote in a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press 

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