A brain-eating amoeba took the life a teenager who went on a church trip in Charlotte, North Carolina, health officials said.
The amoeba is commonly found in warm freshwater and soil, according to the CDC. It also grows in pipes but not salt water such as oceans.
The 18-year-old Ohio woman died of primary amebic mengioencephalitis, a rare but fatal brain infection caused by the amoeba Naegleria fowleri, said Mitzi Kline, director of communication for Franklin County Public Health.
‘Naegleria fowleri infections are rare with 37 cases in the 10 years from 2006 to 2015. But the fatality rate of the infection is as high as 97%.’
The teen's "only known underwater exposure was believed to be when riding in a raft with several others that overturned at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte," the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the presence of the amoeba in cerebral spinal fluid.
The U.S. National Whitewater Center, in response to the incident said in a statement that it gets its water from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities Department and two wells on its property, adding that it disinfects all water with ultraviolet radiation and chlorine.
State and county health officials are working with the CDC and the water park to investigate the death. CDC personnel are in North Carolina and hope to take samples of the water as part of the investigation.