A 2-year-old boy in Nevada has died from a rare brain-eating amoeba infection, apparently acquired at a local hot spring. Authorities have not named the child, though family members identify him as Woodrow Bundy, per KVVU. He is believed to have contracted the brain-eating amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, while visiting Ash Springs, a natural hot spring on federal land in Lincoln County, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, according to the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health.
The amoeba is typically found in warm fresh water, including lakes, rivers, and hot springs, per CBS News. It enters the body through the nose, then travels to the brain, where it destroys brain tissue. Symptoms—including fever, nausea, vomiting, severe headache, and later stiff neck, seizure, and coma—may appear up to 12 days after exposure. An infection is almost always fatal. Just 4 of 157 people diagnosed with the condition in the 60 years prior to 2022 survived, per CBS. Some 77% of the previous cases appeared in males, with a median age of 11, according to the CDC, which confirmed this latest case.
"It came on real fast. Flu-like symptoms, fever—just like any other little sickness that a little boy might get," Woodrow's aunt, Bailey Logue, tells KVVU. The boy succumbed after a week, according to a Facebook post. But Logue notes parents shouldn't live in fear after hearing about the case, given the rarity of the infection. "Take your kids to the lake and the ponds and all the things. And let them play," she says. The CDC recommends taking precautions, namely by avoiding submerging your head in warm fresh water, particularly during the summer, or otherwise plugging your nose. (More brain-eating amoeba stories.)
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