26 June 2016
A North Carolina waterpark (click here) has closed after a teen girl was killed by a brain-eating amoeba. The 18-year-old got the death disease while taking part in a whitewater rafting.
A North Carolina waterpark (click here) has closed after a teen girl was killed by a brain-eating amoeba. The 18-year-old got the death disease while taking part in a whitewater rafting.
Authorities said Lauren Seitz was exposed to the amoeba at the US National Whitewater Center (USNWC) when she was riding a raft that overturned.
The majority of 11 water samples turned out to have the amoeba in them, Mecklenburg County health director Marcus Plescia added at a press conference.
In another statement, the USNWC chief executive Jeffrey Wise expressed the company’s “sincere condolences and sympathies to Lauren and her family.”
In another statement, the USNWC chief executive Jeffrey Wise expressed the company’s “sincere condolences and sympathies to Lauren and her family.”
The victim’s father James Seltz sent a statement to NBC in Ohio, saying the 18-year-old was a talented musician and writer, as well as cared about nature.
“Our family is completely heartbroken and lost without Lauren,” he said. “It is unacceptable that a person who loved nature so much, and was so passionate about environmental issues should be taken from us in this way.”
The water in the center is disinfected with ultraviolet radiation, filtered and periodically given a dose of chlorine, with weekly tests conducted by a third-party laboratory. The lab, in its turn, said that“the levels of UV radiation disinfection utilized every day, continuously, at the center are sufficient to ‘inactivate’ the water-born amoeba in question to an effective level of 99.99%.”...
Most of the world in North Carolina is substandard, why should this be different?
The CDC needs to run an investigation.
Naegleria fowleri (click here) has caused deaths associated with using disinfected public drinking water supplies in Australia and Pakistan and an untreated, geothermal well-supplied drinking water system in Arizona, and a disinfected public drinking water system in Louisiana. The largest amount of experience in managing Naegleria fowleri-contaminated water supplies is in Australia, which had multiple deaths in four states during the 1970s and 1980s that were linked to swimming or having other nasal exposure to contaminated drinking water. The infections were linked to piping drinking water overland, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers, that resulted in the water being heated and having low disinfectant levels. These conditions allowed the water and pipes to become colonized byNaegleria fowleri. Several water systems in the states of Western Australia and South Australia continue to monitor regularly for Naegleria fowleri colonization in drinking water distribution systems. Experience gained in managing Naegleria fowleri contamination of specific water systems has prevented further infections in Australia since that time.
UV radiation is not enough in a water system this size. The air is warming and in turn heats the water within the water system.
This is a good time for the CDC to investigate water borne illnesses with a heating planet.
UV radiation is not enough in a water system this size. The air is warming and in turn heats the water within the water system.
This is a good time for the CDC to investigate water borne illnesses with a heating planet.
