A North Carolina man, Eddie Gray has died from a rare brain-eating amoeba after swimming in a man-made lake at a water park.

The state’s Department of Health and Human Resources said in a news release on Wednesday that the infection was caused by the amoeba which is naturally present in warm freshwater during the summer.

Gray,  who hails from Guilford County reportedly became sick after swimming in Fantasy Lake Water Park in Hope Mills, Cumberland County on July 12.

The Federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that his death was caused by naegleria fowleri, a single-celled organism known as the brain-eating amoeba.

Although the organism can be fatal if forced up the nose, it however does not cause illness if swallowed. Symptoms typically begin with severe headache, fever, nausea and vomiting which gradually progress to stiff neck, seizures and coma.

Health officials say the amoeba, which is known to have infected just 145 people in the United States from 1962 to 2018 can cause severe illness up to nine days after exposure.

In 2016, the amoeba also killed an Ohio college student, Lauren Seitz who had gone underwater at the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.

Seitz died 11 days after being thrown overboard and going underwater at the centre during a church trip. The family of the 18-year-old Lauren were reported to have settled for a wrongful-death complaint in April.