A rare malaria outbreak linked to an imported mosquito has claimed the lives of two workers at Germany’s Frankfurt Airport.
The city’s health authority confirmed the deaths on Wednesday, while four other airport employees infected with the disease are receiving treatment in hospital. Airport officials had initially reported one death and six infections before confirming that a second worker had also died.
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute said an Anopheles mosquito, believed to have arrived aboard an aircraft, was the likely source of the infections.
The development has prompted health authorities to step up monitoring at the airport, with mosquito traps installed to detect and capture any insects that could pose a further risk.
The outbreak is considered unusual because malaria is not normally transmitted within Germany. Most malaria cases recorded in the country are linked to people who have travelled to regions where the disease is endemic.
The Robert Koch Institute said Germany’s last airport-associated malaria outbreak was recorded in 2023.
Health officials have also warned that the rarity of locally acquired malaria can make the disease more difficult to recognise, potentially delaying diagnosis and increasing the risk of serious complications. The four infected employees who remain alive are being treated in hospital, according to an airport spokesman.
The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, is expected to analyse blood samples from the patients to identify the malaria parasites and provide further information about the infections.
Authorities are continuing investigations into how the mosquito entered the airport and whether any additional mosquitoes carrying malaria parasites could still be present.
The incident has also renewed attention on the risk posed by so-called airport malaria, in which infected mosquitoes are inadvertently transported from malaria-endemic regions on aircraft and subsequently infect people in areas where malaria transmission is not normally established.
