Beaches along Israel’s Sea of Galilee are being kept open, authorities said Monday, despite a child contracting an infection from a rare brain-eating amoeba after swimming in the water.
Prof. Siegal Sadetzki, head of the Public Health Division at the Health Ministry, told reporters in a briefing that the amoeba was very difficult to locate because of its low concentration in bodies of water, but that it was certainly present in the Sea of Galilee.
“From a professional standpoint, when speaking of swimmers, I’m not sure it is easy to cross the Sea of Galilee with a nose plug, and therefore there’s a simple and effective solution, which is to postpone a social and mass event to a more convenient date. As for individuals, everyone will decide what they want to do based on the existing risk,” she said.
Organizers of the annual Speedo Sea of Galilee Swim announced Monday that the event — previously scheduled for September 19 — would be pushed off until November 14 due to the incident.
Tiberias Mayor Yossi Nava, who is also head of the Kinneret Cities Association, said in a video statement that “the Sea of Galilee’s beaches are open to the general public; there is no directive to close the beaches.”
