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The girl, Hannah
Collins, of Beaufort, died on Friday night at the Medical
University of South Carolina in Charleston, said Carla Smith,
director-manager of the Anderson Funeral Home in Beaufort, which
is handling the funeral.
Hannah is thought to have been exposed to the amoeba on July 24
in Charleston County's Edisto River, the state health department
said this week.
Hannah's mother, Elizabeth Crockett, wrote on a Facebook page
dedicated to her: "I will try to find comfort in the fact I will
one day be united with her in her new home, Heaven."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this
week that a South Carolina resident had been exposed to the
Naegleria fowleri organism, which is found in warm freshwater
and triggers an infection that destroys brain tissue.
The fatality rate for an infected person is more than 97
percent, according to the CDC.
The brain-eating amoeba was blamed for the death in June of an
18-year-old Ohio woman, who became infected after rafting at the
U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
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