Holidaymakers given urgent warning as Brain-eating bug kills second victim

Even though not relating to Sri Lanka, freshwater swimmers have been advised to think twice before diving into warmer waters, after a second person passed away in the US this month from a brain-eating bug.

The single-celled living organism officially known as Naegleria fowleri, causes extensive brain damage when the amoeba enters the body through the nose.

An unnamed victim has died in Georgia, US, after swimming in freshwater, health officials confirmed on Friday.

Naegleria fowleri “destroys brain tissue, causing brain swelling and usually death,” the Georgia Department of Public Health said.

Earlier this month, a two-year-old child tragically died after visiting the hot pools of Ash Springs in Nevada, near Las Vegas.

Just four out of 157 people recorded to have been infected with the amoeba in the US have survived since 1962, according to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).

Males under the age of 14 are said to be most susceptible, though the reasoning for this remains unclear. Naegleria fowleri is contracted in warm, freshwater, where the bug enters the body through the nose, then destroying the brain tissue and causes a devastating infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

Only visible under a microscope, the single-celled living organism is heat-loving (thermophilic) and tends to be found in warm fresh water such as lakes, rivers and hot springs.

In very rare instances, people have gotten Naegleria fowleri infections from recreational water that didn’t have enough chlorine in it, such as pools and water parks.

Naegleria fowleri cannot be spread from one person to another.

Symptoms occur in two stages, with the first starting 1 to 12 days after infection, and including severe frontal headache, fever, nausea and vomiting.