A worker at Germany’s Frankfurt airport has died after contracting malaria from a mosquito thought to have arrived on a plane, an airport spokesman said Wednesday. “We unfortunately have to confirm a death resulting from infection,” the spokesman said, adding that he offered the worker’s relatives his “deepest condolences”. A total of six employees at Germany’s biggest airport caught malaria, Germany’s government health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, said. It said an imported Anopheles mosquito carried over by an aircraft was the likely cause. The local Hessischer Rundfunk broadcaster first reported the death. According to the RKI, Germany’s last outbreak of airport-based malaria was in 2023. The rarity of the condition means diagnosis can be delayed, increasing the chances of severe symptoms. The other five employees are being treated, the airport spokesman said, adding that mosquito traps have been installed at the airport. The mosquitoes caught will be transferred to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium for genetic tests to find out more about their origin. Caused by parasites spread via Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria can cause symptoms including nausea, headache and intense waves of fever and chills. The disease causes hundreds of thousands of deaths a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Treatments exist and patients caught early with the disease usually make a complete recovery.
