‘Brain-eating amoeba’ led to a death in Florida. What you can do to avoid infection

MIAMI — The old “get out of the water” fear once was stoked by a fictional shark tale set off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

Florida could have an updated version that is even more fraught with danger. “Get out of your shower and bath.” Or, at least, don’t let tap water get sucked up your nose.

The idea revolves around a death in Southwest Florida in February from a “brain-eating amoeba” known as Naegleria fowleri.

The Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County confirmed that a person was infected with Naegleria fowleri, “possibly due to sinus rinse practices utilizing tap water.”

The local NBC affiliate reported that the person used a neti pot filled with tap water as a sinus rinse.

A neti pot is a container designed to rinse debris or mucus from the nasal cavity, according to Mayo Clinic. People use neti pots to treat symptoms of nasal allergies, sinus problems or colds. The Mayo Clinic cautions that “it’s important to use bottled water that has been distilled or sterilized. Tap water is acceptable if it’s been passed through a filter with a pore size of 1 micron or smaller or if it’s been boiled for several minutes and then left to cool until it’s lukewarm.”

Florida’s health department has not released details on the person who died or identified the use of a neti pot, but acknowledged how administering the rinse could have resulted in this death.

You cannot contract the infection by drinking tap water, according to the health department. When you swallow water, it goes down your windpipe and into your stomach and organisms are broken down through the body’s digestive process.

Water contaminated with the amoeba has to enter the body through the nose to do damage.

“Because that is the pathway for Naegleria to work its way into the cerebral spinal fluid in the brain, what ends up happening is the infection overwhelms the body, and … unfortunately, it’s highly dangerous and fatal,” Dr. Joe Pepe, an administrator at the Charlotte County Health Department, told NBC2.

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