Two Frankfurt airport workers die in rare malaria cluster

German health authorities are investigating a rare cluster of malaria infections connected to Frankfurt airport after two workers died and four others required hospital treatment.

Six people who worked at or around Germany’s largest airport have contracted malaria tropica since July, Frankfurt’s public health department said. One fatal case began with illness in early July and the second in mid-August. The four surviving patients have left danger after hospital care.

Officials have installed mosquito traps in and around the airport, and captured insects are being examined at a tropical-medicine laboratory in Antwerp. Airport workers have received information about symptoms, while doctors have been asked to consider malaria when treating airport personnel with unexplained fever.

The Robert Koch Institute believes the infections were probably caused by an Anopheles stephensi mosquito transported aboard an aircraft. Known as “airport malaria,” such transmission can occur when mosquitoes arrive from endemic areas in aircraft cabins, cargo holds or baggage.

Authorities stressed that malaria does not spread directly between people and assessed the risk to the wider Frankfurt population as low. They are reviewing whether aircraft disinfection and the removal of mosquito breeding sites are being carried out effectively.

Germany’s previous documented airport-malaria case was recorded at Frankfurt in 2023 and was successfully treated.