MOHAVE COUNTY, Ariz. — Public health officials in Mohave County, along with the Arizona Department of Health Services, are investigating a possible case of Naegleria fowleri, which is more commonly knows as "brain-eating amoeba."
Health officials sent off specimens Tuesday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for testing.
Naegleria fowleri is a single-celled living organism that lives in warm, fresh water such as lakes, rivers and hot springs, according to the CDC. Infections are rare, with only 29 confirmed cases in the United States between 2013 and 2022.
Naegleria fowleri infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, according to the CDC. The death rate is over 97 percent.
"Only four people have survived out of 157 known infected individuals in the United States from 1962 to 2022," CDC officials report.
Mohave County previously had a confirmed case of brain-eating amoeba in 2007, health officials said. The person was exposed to the amebae at Lake Havasu. Another confirmed case of Naegleria fowleri occurred on the Arizona side Lake Mead in 2022.
"The amebae are more likely to live in sediment at the bottom of lakes, ponds, and rivers, so people should avoid digging in, or stirring up the sediment in shallow, warm fresh water," the CDC website said. It can take weeks to perform an environmental investigation and identify the ameba in water, CDC officials said.
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