BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — State health officials say testing has confirmed the presence of a killer amoeba in a water system serving three St. John the Baptist Parish towns.

The Department of Health and Hospitals said Wednesday that the Naegleria fowleri amoeba was found in the St. John Water District 1 water system, which serves 12,577 people in the towns of Reserve, Garyville and Mt. Airy.

Officials say there are currently no known cases of illness related to the amoeba in the parish or elsewhere in the state.

The water system was sampled as part of DHH's surveillance program launched earlier this month. During the testing, DHH discovered the system was not in compliance with the state's emergency rule requiring water systems to maintain a minimum disinfectant residual level needed to control the amoeba.

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