Texas water alert for deadly amoeba
Tens of thousands of Texans were ordered not to use the water after a 6-year-old boy died as a result of exposure to a brain-eating amoeba.
Josiah McIntyre died earlier this month, testing positive for Naegleria fowleri after playing at a public splash pad and a sprinkler at home in Lake Jackson in suburban Houston, officials and his family said.
Initial tests of the water supply came back negative — but another round of tests came back positive Friday from three locations, including a hydrant, the splash pad’s storage tank and a spigot at the boy’s home.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued an urgent advisory warning people not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets.
It included the boy’s hometown of Lake Jackson — a city of more than 27,000 — and Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute and Rosenberg, as well as Dow ChemicalFreeport and the Clemens and Wayne Scott state prison units. Some 120,000 residents are affected by the order.
While working to disinfect the whole system, officials later lifted the “do not use water” advisory Saturday — saying it would be safe if boiled, and listing a series of safety protocols for showering or swimming.
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living microscopic amoeba commonly found in warm freshwater that “can cause a rare and devastating infection of the brain,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Josiah’ s mother, Maria Castillo, told ABC13 that she was “angry, upset, sad and heartbroken.”
“He was an active little boy,” she said of her baseball-obsessed son, who “loved the Houston Astros.”
“He was a really good big brother. He just loved and cared about a lot of people,” she said, adding that knowing how he contacted it “gives us peace of mind.”