Two-year-old dies from brain-eating amoeba

A two-year-old boy has died from a brain-eating amoeba in Nevada.

Woodrow Bundy died from the Naegleria fowleri infection on Wednesday, his mother said.

The boy is believed to have been exposed to the deadly amoeba at a natural hot spring.

Woodrow fought for seven days, his mother Briana wrote on Facebook.

“He is my hero and I will forever be grateful to God for giving me the goodest baby boy on earth, and I am grateful to know I will have that boy in heaven someday,” she said.

Naegleria fowleri – a microscopic single-celled amoeba – lives in soil and warm fresh water, the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioural Health said.

It infects people by entering the body through the nose and travelling to the brain, where it causes a serious infection that destroys brain tissue and is almost always fatal.

Symptoms begin with a severe headache, fever, nausea and vomiting, before progressing to a stiff neck, seizures and coma, leading to death.

Four out of 157 people infected with the amoeba in the US have survived since 1962, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It recommends people avoid jumping into bodies of warm fresh water and avoid putting their heads underwater in hot springs.