How the climate crisis is fueling the spread of a brain-eating amoeba

Health officials say a child likely died from a rare infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba after swimming in the Elkhorn River in eastern Nebraska. Photograph: Chris Machian/AP

The death of a child in Nebraska this summer put the rare but deadly Naegleria fowleri – more commonly known as brain-eating amoeba – back in the headlines. The amoeba lives in warm, fresh water and can enter the body through the nose, where it travels to the brain and starts to destroy tissue.

The case underscored a troubling new reality – climate change is encouraging the amoeba to pop up in parts of the US where it isn’t typical, such as the north and west.