Overview

• A CDC report confirmed Naegleria fowleri in the 71-year-old woman’s cerebrospinal fluid after she rinsed her sinuses with untreated RV tap water.
• She experienced fever, headache and altered mental status within four days of the nasal rinse and died eight days after symptoms began.
• Environmental sampling showed the RV’s water tank was inadequately disinfected, though amoeba DNA was not detected, likely due to delayed testing.
• Naegleria fowleri causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a nearly always fatal brain infection that afflicts fewer than ten people annually in the U.S.
• The CDC now recommends using only distilled, sterile or boiled and cooled water for sinus rinses and has issued specific RV water-system maintenance advice.