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https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/aircraft-disinsection
https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/aircraft-disinsection
Not sure where the idea came from that spraying the cabin aisle would penetrate the luggage bins, cargo hold, under the seats, or really anywhere.
2. Risk is convex, so every risk increase by measures not taken is multiplicative, not additive.
The real question must be: does the disinfection do more harm than it provides reduction of risk.
> Im Zusammenhang mit den bereits bekannten sechs Fällen von Malaria tropica bei Personen, die am Flughafen Frankfurt am Main tätig sind, sind zwei Erkrankte verstorben
And a quick search says that this is the most dangerous one. Of course it had to be...
[0]:https://frankfurt.de/de-de/aktuelle-meldung/meldungen/gesund...
Luckily we could get vaccinated a year later. If you’ve had it and catch another variant mortality rate jumps to 10%. But usually those variants don’t overlap, it’s region based.
https://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Zwei-Tote-durch-Flughafen-Malar...
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.E...
Now, some people are more resistant to some diseases than others. Sickle cell anemia heterozygote humans can live with plasmodium alright.
What surprises me is that someone around an airport in Germany (urban area) actually died of malaria. Malaria causes intervals of very high fever which lead to hospitalization and treatment.
There was a good story of a Dutchman living in Mali who got malaria a few times (everyone does). It’s manageable with the meds.
Anyway he flies home, then develops symptoms. Goes to hospital and they freak. Full hazmat suits, isolation, doctors visiting from all over because they’d never seen it. Guy ends up dying because they wouldn’t give him the meds, because they didn’t know if it was safe, or what the right thing to do was.
Moral of the story is that for anyone spending time in malaria zones, take the meds home with you. If you get symptomatic, take the meds and maybe not go to hospital in the developed world. Meds I took was “coartem” and an injectable.
Healthy working adults with access to healthcare don't just die of malaria. Two deaths means it's not some unique susceptibility in one individual either.
The more interesting investigation would be how the system let two people die of malaria, not how malaria got there.
Does it? "Have you been near the equator recently?" is a rather common question that GPs ask when you go see them with high fever. Doctors in Germany are absolutely aware of malaria, given how much we like to travel to all those beautiful, but unfortunately malaria-ridden countries.
The only thing, of course, is: That question wouldn't have helped here. However, this[0] source says airport staff are made aware of the possibility of contracting malaria and are told to watch out for symptoms.
[0]: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/hessen/malaria-am-...
In the US it's a few thousand dollars for the treatment.
Call around and ask "What is your self cash pay cost?".
Most people don't know to ask that and if you don't speak the magic phrase then you get billed at the rate the office would normally charge insurance. Not all places have self pay discounts.
Some states have special programs for hospitals but they vary wildly by state and you have to know how to navigate that particular program and be very patient. Some are need based so if you are above a pretty low income threshold you won't qualify.
There are definitely ways to rack up big bills fast, though, just by being unlucky.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria
One question that gets asked is "have you traveled to another country?" When the answer is "no", then doctors no longer consider diseases that exist in other countries. So that is why they did not understand the parasitic infection until it was too late.
Some of the early symptoms resemble a bad cold.
The parasite that causes malaria (literally "bad air") can only survive in certain species of mosquitos. Those skeeters don't live in Germany. They used to live in the state I live in, but they were exterminated back in the 1950s & 1960s (thanks DDT!). And people from West Africa were naturally/genetically resistant, which was why slaves from that region were preferred over every other race in the southern US where malaria existed until the 1950s & 1960s. If you have 0 copies of the gene then you usually die (of malaria) before puberty. If you have 2 copies of the gene, then you die from sickle cell anemia (usually by your teen years). If you have 1 copy of that gene (another commenter used the term "heterozygote") then the parasite can't live in some of your red blood cells, so you survive to have children.
Germany never had it, and reported being malaria free in 1964. America, in 1970.
https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/eliminati...
It's easy to test for malaria, if you actually think to test for malaria. In the 90s, we used to hear wild stories from people we knew who would come down with malaria shortly after returning to the USA and doctors and nurses would freak out not knowing what to do about it, and the medication would be expensive to obtain, so the conventional wisdom was also to remember to take a few pills with you on the plane back to the USA!
It's sad but unsurprising that no one was able to treat these German workers in time. When I was a child, there was already talk of strains developing resistance, and this has gotten worse in the 21st century, and the airport workers caught the most deadly strain:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/malaria-outbre...
"It [the Robert Koch Institute] said laboratory tests to determine the source of the infections were not expected to be available for several weeks. [...] The [Robert Koch] institute said malaria in Germany almost exclusively affects long-haul travellers who were infected in malaria-endemic areas, and that malaria transmitted within a German airport is rare. 'The lack of a travel history can lead to a delayed diagnosis. A delayed diagnosis increases the risk of a severe course of the diseases,' the institute said in its epidemiological bulletin."
Likely this happened because they have no expertise and didn’t know what to do.
Imagine if you showed up in a hospital in the us with a sting from some super intense scorpion that only exists is some obscure part of the world. They’ll try to help, but likely can’t do much.
Usually, it is through shipping containers where unwanted insects cross borders. That's how murder hornets and flying cockroaches got into the US.
The proper solution is a thick layer of petroleum jelly over your skin. The larva has to come up to breathe eventually (~hours). Use tweezers and grab it. Gross, but perfectly safe.
A concerted effort to treat cases and reduce habitat can prevent it, too. The US wiped it out in the 50s; new cases largely come from travel.
No human cases means no reservoir for the spring's new mosquitos to draw from. It's why Florida's safe these days, despite the climate.
I’m not sure the USA would have been successful eradicating malaria without using DDT or something similar.
DDT caused the Bald Eagle population to drop from about 400,000 birds to just 47 nesting pairs.
https://youtu.be/-UiCSvQvVys
Plenty more out there.
It's unlikely to become a problem again because the climate is not optimal and these countries are wealthy, have advanced healthcare systems, and can spray everything with DDT again if they feel like doing it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8277918/
It is unlikely that malaria will establish itself, given that it gets cold and inhospitable to malaria-carrying mosquitos in Northern Europe. However, it is one of many things that could potentially be frog-boiled into existence in northern latitudes as a result of climate change.
I live in an area where mosquitos were unbearable this year. You couldn’t do outdoor activities without a mosquito net. It’s bad enough but I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if the threat of mosquito-borne illness was layered on.