Two Airport Workers Die After Being Bitten by ‘Mosquito on Plane’

Two workers at one of Europe’s busiest airports have died after contracting malaria in a bizarre outbreak that health officials believe was caused by infected mosquitoes brought into Germany aboard an airplane.

Six male employees at Frankfurt Airport contracted malaria even though none of them had traveled to a country where the mosquito-borne disease is common, according to German health authorities.

Officials believe the workers were victims of a rare phenomenon known as “airport malaria,” in which an infected mosquito is accidentally transported aboard an international flight or inside luggage before biting someone at or near an airport.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute, the country’s national public health agency, said the most likely explanation is that an infected Anopheles mosquito arrived on an aircraft and transmitted the parasite to the workers.

The six employees reportedly became sick in early July, with the Robert Koch Institute saying the illnesses developed between July 4 and July 6.

The first worker died in July, although malaria was not immediately identified as the cause of his death. A second employee died in August.

The other four infected workers are said to be recovering well.

One of the workers who died reportedly worked servicing aircraft, according to German media.

The mysterious cluster is especially unusual because Germany has not experienced widespread locally transmitted malaria in decades. Most malaria cases detected in the country involve travelers who were infected abroad.

But airport malaria is different.

An infected mosquito can survive a flight from a malaria-risk region, escape from a plane or luggage after arrival, and then bite airport employees, passengers or other people nearby.

Frankfurt Airport previously recorded another case of airport malaria in 2023.

Officials have now placed mosquito traps around affected areas of the massive airport as investigators try to determine exactly what happened.

Mosquitoes caught in the traps are being sent for genetic analysis at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, in an effort to determine their species and possible origin.

Blood and laboratory testing could also help investigators understand whether the six workers were infected by one mosquito or multiple mosquitoes.

Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport has alerted employees about the outbreak and urged workers to seek medical attention if they develop possible symptoms.

Despite the two deaths, health authorities stressed that there is no indication of a wider threat to travelers or residents.

“The mosquito is probably already dead,” Peter Tinnemann, head of Frankfurt’s health authority, told German news agency DPA.

He also said there is no likelihood of the illness spreading directly from person to person and described the risk to the general Frankfurt population as negligible.

Frankfurt Airport is Germany’s busiest airport and handled roughly 63 million passengers last year, making the unusual outbreak particularly striking.

Malaria is caused by parasites that are transmitted to humans through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.

A single infected mosquito bite can be enough to transmit the disease.

Symptoms can include fever, chills, sweating, headaches, muscle aches and extreme fatigue. Some patients may also experience confusion, sore throat or yellowing of the whites of the eyes.

Symptoms often develop within days or weeks after a bite, although the timing can vary depending on the type of malaria parasite.

The form involved in the Frankfurt outbreak was reportedly tropical malaria, considered the most dangerous form of the disease. Severe malaria can lead to serious organ complications, coma and death if treatment is delayed.

Malaria can generally be successfully treated when diagnosed quickly, but it remains a major global killer, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The strange Frankfurt cases also highlight one of the dangers of airport malaria: doctors may not immediately suspect the disease when a patient has never traveled to a malaria-risk country.

Authorities are continuing to investigate how the infected mosquito or mosquitoes reached the airport and whether all six cases can be traced back to the same source.