Precautionary measures are up on the community site
It is a given that children love to play with water. If they can swim all day and get drenched to beat the heat, they would. Six-year-old Josiah McIntyre was one of the boys who loved the water.
His mom Maria Castillo, in an interview with abc13, shared that her son “was an active little boy.” Josiah was infected with Naegleria fowleri which is a brain-eating amoeba found in water. He got sick and eventually died last Sept. 8. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “naegleria fowleri infects people when water containing the amoeba enters the body through the nose. This typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places, like lakes and rivers. The Naegleria fowleri amoeba then travels up the nose to the brain where it destroys the brain tissue.”
The local town of Lake Jackson, Texas, USA, where the family of Josiah resides, ran tests to confirm the presence of this microbe. They were able to detect them in three spots—a hydrant, a splash pad storage tank, and the faucet in the family’s house. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also released guidelines and safety protocols regarding water
consumption and usage, including boiling water as added precautionary measures. Here are some more reminders from the CDC:
● Do not allow water to go up your nose or sniff water into your nose when bathing, showering, washing your face, or swimming.
● Do not jump into or put your head under bathing water.
● Do not allow children to play with hoses, sprinklers, or any toy or device that may accidentally squirt water up the nose.
● Do run bath and shower taps and hoses for five minutes before use to flush out the pipes.
● Do keep small, hard plastic/blow-up pools clean by emptying, scrubbing, and allowing them to dry after each use.
● Do use only boiled and cooled, distilled, or sterile water for making sinus rinse solutions for neti pots or performing ritual ablutions.
● Do keep swimming pools adequately disinfected before and during use.
Adequate disinfection means:
○ Pools: free chlorine at 1-3 parts per million (ppm) and pH 7.2-7.8; and
○ Hot tubs/spas: free chlorine 2-4 parts per million (ppm) or free bromine 4-6 ppm and pH 7.2-7.8.
● Do place the hose directly into the skimmer box and ensure that the filter is running.
● Do not top off by placing the hose in the body of the pool.