8-year-old girl dies from brain-eating amoeba infection in Louisiana
Lillian Smart, 8, has died after being infected by an extremely rare brain-eating amoeba that is found in warm freshwater, her family said.
CBS News3 sources
Published by CurrentWire · First coverage · Latest coverage
Compiled by CurrentWire News Desk
Summary based on reporting from CBS News, ABC News and Fox News.
Coverage at a glance
- First observed by CurrentWire: Fox News · Aug 23, 2026 at 8:50 PM ET
- Coverage span: 20h 0m
- Coverage: 3 reports from 3 independent publications
- Coverage growth: 1 → 3 publications in 3h 29m
Automated coverage analysis
Generated automatically from the coverage listed on this page. CurrentWire adds no editorial claims.
Coverage
3 publications are covering this story.
Excerpts are the summaries each publisher distributes with its own feed, shortened and attributed.
CBS NewsTier B
8-year-old girl dies from brain-eating amoeba infection in Louisiana(opens original report in a new tab)ABC NewsTier B
8-year-old Louisiana girl dies from rare brain-eating amoeba found in warm freshwater(opens original report in a new tab)An 8-year-old girl in Louisiana has died after being infected by an extremely rare brain-eating amoeba that is found in warm freshwater — ABC News
Fox NewsTier B
Louisiana girl, 8, dies after contracting suspected brain-eating amoeba linked to lake swim(opens original report in a new tab)Lillian Smart's family says the 8-year-old's brain injuries were too severe to survive after contracting Naegleria fowleri while swimming in a lake. — Fox News
How coverage developed
First report from Fox News
Story updateHeadline updated
Reported by ABC News
Reported by CBS News
Story updateHeadline updated
Story updateCBS News joined coverage
Story updateFox News joined coverage
Story updateCoverage went from 1 to 3 sources
How CurrentWire compiled this story
CBS News (www.cbsnews.com), a Tier B publisher, filed this report on . CurrentWire published this page 17 hours later, on .
Signal breakdown
CurrentWire ranked this story 79.5 of 100 in the snapshot this page was rendered from.
- Freshness
- 31.4 of 35
- Source authority
- 14 of 20
- Coverage breadth
- 11.1 of 20
- Geographic relevance
- 10 of 10
- Story prominence
- 8 of 10
- Velocity
- 5 of 5
Strongest signal: geographic relevance, 10 of 10. How each signal is calculated.
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