NEW YORK—Louisiana municipalities are increasing chlorine levels in public water systems to combat a brain-eating amoeba responsible for causing three deaths in 2013, including that of a four-year-old boy.
Federal health official indicated the organism, Naegleria Fowleri, was living in water supply test sites in the DeSoto and the St. Bernard Parishes. Although the amoeba-contaminated water is safe to drink, if forced into the nose—by diving into a pool or other sites of warm, still water where the amoeba thrives—it can travel to the brain via the olfactory nerve and cause encephalitis.
A spokeswoman for the DeSoto waterworks system, which services nearly 5,000 customers, told Accuweather that the district is unaware of how the amoeba entered into the public utility's infrastructure, although more than 1,000 breaks in the system's lines were repaired after Hurricane Katrina.
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