Allemagne: deux agents d’aéroport décèdent du paludisme, un moustique infecté suspecté d’être arrivé en avion
A rare and silent tragedy has struck Germany's largest airport, Frankfurt. Six employees of Frankfurt Airport contracted malaria. Two of them have died, the city's public health department announced on Wednesday, August 26. According to the operator, Fraport, all the employees worked in various handling departments and none had recently traveled to an area where malaria is endemic.
The leading hypothesis, according to the Robert Koch Institute, the German health agency, is that of "airport malaria." An infected Anopheles mosquito is believed to have survived the flight on a long-haul plane, likely from sub-Saharan Africa, before biting the employees on the tarmac. The first symptoms appeared between July 4 and 6. The rarity of this type of transmission in Europe delayed diagnosis, which complicated the most serious cases. The four other employees are hospitalized and recovering.
The German airport management company Fraport, deeply shocked by the incident, expressed its sorrow. It has set up mosquito traps at the site. The captured insects will be sent to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp for genetic analysis to identify their origin. Authorities reiterate that the risk to the population of Frankfurt remains "very, very low" because malaria is not transmitted from person to person, only through mosquito bites.
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