According to local media, the Texas teenager who contracted a rare brain-eating disease has already passed away as posted in Reuters. The 14-year old boy was said to have swam in a lake about 70 miles north of Houston before he was diagnosed with the infection.
Michael Riley Jr. was both an Olympian and an honour student. He seemed to have contracted the disease after he went swimming in the said lake last August 13 together with his track team according to his father in an interview with KTRK earlier this week.
In a statement on their Facebook page late on Saturday night, the family expressed their grief over the incident, "It is with a heavy hart, that we let everyone know that Michael John Riley Jr. Lost his battle on hearth but won a victory for his place in the arms of our Lord Jesus Chris."
No other details were provided by the Texas Children's Hospital where Riley had been listed as a patient citing patient confidentiality.
Three-time junior Olympian and honor student Michael Riley Jr. should have been starting high school at Cy Ridge on Monday. Only a handful of people have ever survived the rare parasite. "Coming from a lake, you might think maybe you'd get an ear infection, something like that," said his father, Mike Riley. "You wouldn't think that going to the doctor's office that they'd tell you your son only has a couple days to live, which is what they told us."
The disease is caused by exposure to a single-celled organism called as "Naegleria fowleri", referred to mostly as the brain-eating amoeba. These are commonly found in fresh waters such as lakes, rivers and hot springs. They are also said to be found in soil. According to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, this disease commonly infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose. In the U.S., the organism is commonly found in the southern part of the country during the summer when temperatures are at its peak according to CDC. Only three have survived the disease since 1962. In the United States, a total of 133 people has been reported infected with the disease since that time according to CDC.
There have been five cases in the U.S. just this year. A few weeks ago, a Houston-area kid also didn't survive the brain-eating amoeba, which is why the Rileys wanted to spread awareness about the disease. Symptoms include terrible headache, vomiting, fever, disorientation.
