They didn’t mention the strain. My understanding is that there are 5 strains. P. malariae is common and not particularly deadly while. When i visited Africa, all of the locals had had malaria multiple times. P. falciparum is extremely nasty and can kill quickly.
Kinda wild. I spent most of my childhood a couple hours drive from a malaria region and never heard of anyone getting sick locally that hadn’t travelled that way. So multiple people in Germany seems surprising.
I live in a mosquito ladden region and some mosquitoe individuals ingest blood until they can no longer fly (they die) Many mosquitoe individuals feed until full, not necessarily from only one human.
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.
I got malaria twice in Africa. First time bad, second time REAL bad. I thought about death a little.
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.
Kind of similar to rabies. If you get bit by a rabid animal in an area with lots of rabies, the doctors know what to do and you get meds immediately for cheap.
In the US it's a few thousand dollars for the treatment.
It's really not. I use a little cash-pay clinic in a MCOL area and mostly spend <$100, never over $200, per visit. Also, my wife recently had some major dental work done, and it was about $350. All of this without getting insurance involved.
There are definitely ways to rack up big bills fast, though.
How could two people die from it in Germany with modern medicine? Is malaria randomly fatal despite treatment, or did they not understand what the infection was or not seek treatment or something?
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.
"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."
Cerebral malaria is fatal with no treatment in many cases. For kids and elderly it’s fatal even with.
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.
And some of them have Super powerful side effects - I had a 3 day violent psychotic break I have no memory of, but I did get to wake up strapped to a bed!
The author of the book Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You had a story like that; he managed to pick up a parasitic fly infection while abroad and had to convince health care workers to cut out the larvae from under his skin.
Only a few species of mosquitos can carry the parasite. None of them live in that part of Europe. The swamps around the city of Rome were historically infested with those skeeters which is why we use the Italian word for the disease (which means "bad air").
Malaria was endemic in Finland until the beginning of the 20th century, the people used to lived inside smoke-heated chimneyless log cabins together with animals, mosquitoes... and Plasmodium vivax...
USA wiped out malaria in the 50s using DDT which also made the California condor go extinct in the wild. During the 70s-90s DDT became illegal to use in most countries around the globe.
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.
No. Malaria epidemics occurred in medieval Europe, both in warmer countries (Italy, Greece) and in France, Germany and England. It was also common in portions of the US until large-scale eradication efforts.
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.
Yes to everything but "the climate is not optimal". The climate was not optimal. I expect this year's weather in most of Europe must have been pretty spectacular for mosquitoes; if it becomes a regular occurrence, as scientists suggest, things might get pretty spicy. Places like Milan are already massive breeding grounds for the most aggressive types of mosquitoes.
There were malaria epidemics in even quite temperate parts of Europe up to the mid 20th century, including Bavaria and even England, and it was endemic to parts of Italy and Greece. P. falciparum was found in bone samples of the Medicis.
Yes, I remember reading in Charles C. Mann's book 1493 an interesting chapter about how malaria was pretty common in preindustrial SE England, where it was known as "marsh fever" or "ague."
Malaria was endemic to the Deep South in the States up until the 1950s, at which point it was declared eradicated thanks to a miracle chemical called DDT. They should put that on everything (/s).
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.
I can not say anything about this incident, but what I have noticed
in the last some years is that mosquitos have become much more annoying
even in larger cities of mediate temperature. That has not been the case
say 30 years up to 10 years ago or so, give or take. The range of mosquito
attacks has definitely increased in every axis. Kind of almost miniature
mosquitos too - really small, like barely 0.5 cm at max in length or perhaps
0.6 cm, but annoying to no ends and very hungry for blood. One can speculate
but I think the increased temperature range induced this for the most part.
https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/aircraft-disinsection
https://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Zwei-Tote-durch-Flughafen-Malar...
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.
In the US it's a few thousand dollars for the treatment.
There are definitely ways to rack up big bills fast, though.
I’ve never heard of this. Private practice? If so, count your blessings until they get hoovered up by PE and quadruple their prices overnight.
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 [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.
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.
I don't know why immigration for humans and mosquitoes is so lax in Germany. Germany is also the country of the Marburg Virus.