This archive report was first published on 17 September 2019.
Published on September 17, 2019, a 10-year-old girl from Texas has tragically lost her life to a rare brain-eating amoeba.
Lily Mae Avant, a young girl with a big personality, contracted the infection after swimming in a river and lake over the Labour Day holiday weekend in September.
Her health quickly deteriorated, and she was taken to a local hospital before being transferred to Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth.
The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed that Lily Mae had primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection caused by the so-called brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri.
According to the agency, the first symptoms of the infection typically appear about a week after the amoeba enters the nose.
"The amoeba is present in freshwater across Texas and elsewhere in the US, and there's no particular body of water that would present a greater risk," agency spokesman Chris Van Deusen told television station KWTX.
