A deadly brain-eating single-celled organism named "Naegleria fowleri amoeba" has been found in the tap water used by people in three communities in Louisiana.

The amoeba, which attacks the brain and the nervous system, was found in the water system being used by the towns of Reserve, Garyville and Mt Airy, said the U.S. Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).

Like Us on Facebook

The Louisiana water system currently serves over 12,500 individuals.

The Naegleria fowleri amoeba can cause a rare and usually fatal brain infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

People inflicted with PAM die 1 to 12 days after symptoms start. Detection is usually very difficult, however, because the disease progresses so quickly that diagnosis is usually only concluded after death.

Symptoms of the disease are divided into two stages.

Stage 1 consists of severe frontal headache, fever, nausea and vomiting.

Stage 2 consists of a stiff neck, seizures, hallucinations and eventually, a coma.

This disease is almost always fatal, with only four known individuals known to have ever survived the infection.

Oddly enough, a person cannot be infected with the amoeba by drinking contaminated water. Instead, infection occurs when the organism enters the body through the nose and travels to the brain.

Infected individuals usually obtain the amoeba by swimming or diving in warm freshwater like ponds, lakes or rivers, or in rare occasions in inadequately chlorinated swimming pools.

The DHH announced that although water cleaned is safe for drinking, the water supply is currently being monitored, especially since this is the third water system in Louisiana to test positive for the amoeba.

Fortunately, no deaths have resulted from PAM.

A child in New Orleans died from the amoeba in 2011. In 2013, a four-year old boy from Mississippi and a 12-year-old from Florida also passed away from being infected by the organism.