Frankfurt malaria outbreak death toll rises to three

A malaria outbreak linked to Frankfurt Airport has now caused three deaths among eight infections since late August, local health officials said Thursday.

Frankfurt's health department said one person died and another was infected in the latest cases. Both lived near the airport and were likely infected by a mosquito that arrived on an aircraft, according to the department.

The two latest patients had not travelled to a malaria-endemic area and had not worked at the airport, health authorities said. They lived in the immediate vicinity of Frankfurt Airport in the Schwanheim district.

Six Frankfurt Airport employees contracted malaria in late August, and two of them died. Officials said no further malaria cases had been reported to the public health department since the beginning of the week.

The health department urged doctors to consider malaria in patients with unexplained fever, even without travel to a malaria-endemic area, especially if they live near the airport or work there.

Malaria is transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes and can cause headaches, nausea, high fever and chills. The Frankfurt city health department said the disease is not transmitted from person to person. The Robert Koch Institute said Germany's last recorded case of airport malaria occurred in 2023.