MIMS, Fla. – Within the next few days, federal health officials should reveal whether a deadly freshwater amoeba caused a Mims teenager's death, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported.
Courtney Nash, 16, died Saturday after contracting a rare brain infection. The Astronaut High student was hospitalized with meningitis after swimming in the St. Johns River near the Brevard-Volusia county line.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will analyze medical data, then announce whether Nash's death was linked with the dread amoeba Naegleria fowleri, Brevard County Health Commissioner Heidar Heshmati said Sunday.
Heshmati said Brevard's most recent amoeba victim -- a third-grader at Port Malabar Elementary who swam at Max K. Rodes Park in West Melbourne -- was reported in 2002. The last case prior to that was a 6-year-old boy in 1980, Heshmati said.
Both children died.
"Usually, (the victims) are active, young persons that get the disease. It's sad," he said. "When the weather is warm, in every lake in every park, every river -- you will find the amoeba. You should not dive into the water, and you should not disturb the bottom of the lake. You should use earplugs and noseplugs."