Local transmission of ‘Malaria’ detected in the US for first time in 20 years

The dreaded disease, Malaria has been detected in three persons in the US who didn’t travel abroad and healthcare officials are alarmed. For the first time in 20 years, locally acquired Malaria was detected in two persons in Florida and one person in Texas.

As per a report by Vox, cases of Malaria in the US are all linked to travel outside the country by the infected people. But the three cases raise fears of local transmission. In plain terms, it means local mosquitoes spread the disease. It can be implied that more such cases might be there.

“It’s always worrisome that you have local transmission in an area,” Estelle Martin, an entomologist at the University of Florida who researches mosquito-borne diseases, told Vox.

Notably, Malaria spreads through female Anopheles mosquito who carry the parasite that cause the disease. Such a mosquito passes the parasite to the bloodstream of a healthy person when it bites him. The infected person then starts carrying the parasite which gets passed to another mosquito when it bites him and the cycle continues. Mosquitoes are not affected by the Malaria-causing parasite.

According to the CDC, symptoms of malaria include fever, shaking, chills, headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and tiredness. Malaria is a life-threatening disease if not treated.

United States successfully fought off against the disease, eliminating it in the 1950s but the country still has lots of Anopheles mosquitoes who can carry the parasite which gets brought by any traveler who visited any foreign country.

“Today, global travel and trade allow vector-borne diseases to be moved around the world and transmitted by local mosquitoes or ticks, especially in places where those diseases may have once been common,” a CDC spokesperson wrote to Vox in an email.