Doctors say an American woman died from rare brain-eating amoebas after using tap water to rinse her sinuses.
The 69-year-old, from Seattle, died after undergoing brain surgery at Swedish Medical Center in February of this year.
Her doctor told the Seattle Times that there was “amoeba all over the place just eating brain cells”.
Doctors said the woman likely became infected when she used tap water in her neti pot which is used to flush out nasal passages, according to a study published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Experts have suggested that only distilled, sterile or previously boiled water should be used because tap water can contain tiny organisms that are safe to drink but could survive in nasal passages.
Only three similar US cases have occurred from 2008 to 2017 and these types of infections are very rare doctors say.
