Rare brain-eating amoeba killed South Carolina's 12-year-old boy after spending a joyful Fourth of July in a popualar lake ...

Naegleria fowleri, the rare, but deadly, so-called brain-eating amoeba, can be found in Pennsylvania's waters.

The family of a 12-year-old South Carolina boy who died after contracting a rare infection associated with Naegleria fowleri ...

Jaysen Carr died after contracting a rare infection brought on by a freshwater amoeba reportedly in a South Carolina lake.

Infections caused by Naegleria fowleri can lead to symptoms including fever, seizures, hallucinations and death.

Attorney and Columbia City Councilman Tyler Bailey was hired by the family to independently investigate the child’s death.

A patient at Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands in South Carolina died after being infected with Naegleria fowleri, a ...

Naegleria fowleri can make its own nutrients, but still forages soil or water for food from bacteria, fungi and other organisms. That is how problems can arise for freshwater swimmers, Rice said.

Naegleria fowleri lays waste to cells in the brain, leading to a grisly demise in the very rare cases when it manages to lodge itself in a victim's nasal cavity.

Naegleria fowleri is common in the environment but infections are extremely rare, said Emma H. Wilson, a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of California at Riverside.

But Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital, said that Naegleria fowleri shouldn’t cause you to change your summer plans. “There’s only been about 120 ...