The Florida Department of Health has confirmed a case of brain-eating amoeba. The potentially deadly infection had been contracted by a swimmer who bathed in unsanitary water at a private residence in Broward County.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the amoeba, whose scientific name is Naegleria fowlerii, causes a rare and devastating infection of the brain, .

The confirmation of the case in Florida came just days after 11-year-old Hannah Collins succumbed to the amoeba after swimming in a river in South Carolina.

Authorities did not give the name, age or gender of the Florida individual, but informed that they had been receiving treatment in a hospital.

According to the CDC, the organism is commonly found in warm freshwater, usually enters the body through the nasal passage and can cause a rare but extremely deadly infection of the brain.

CDC has informed,of 133 people known to have been infected with the brain-eating amoeba in the United States from 1962 to 2014, only three people have survived.

By Prakriti Neogi