Genetic testing is underway to trace the origin of a mosquito believed to have flown into Germany aboard an aircraft, after the insect was linked to a malaria cluster that has now killed two workers at Frankfurt airport.
The city’s health authority confirmed the second death on Wednesday. An earlier count from airport officials had put the toll at a single worker, with six staff members sickened in total. Four of the surviving patients remain hospitalized, an airport spokesman said, with the rest also under medical care.
Investigators at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) point to an Anopheles mosquito that likely hitched a ride on a plane as the source of the infections. The captured insects are being sent to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, where genetic analysis may reveal where they came from. Traps have been set up around the airport in the meantime.
Malaria spreads through parasites carried by Anopheles mosquitoes and can bring on headaches, nausea and severe cycles of fever and chills. Worldwide it kills hundreds of thousands of people annually, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the heaviest burden. Because the illness rarely surfaces in Germany, doctors can be slow to recognize it, and that delay raises the risk of the disease turning severe.
The RKI notes that the previous instance of airport-linked malaria in the country dated to 2023. Effective treatments are available, and those diagnosed in the early stages typically recover fully.
