Origin and prevention of airport malaria in France

Abstract

Since 1969, 63 cases of airport malaria have been reported in Western Europe, 24 of which occurred in France. Most were due to Plasmodium falciparum. In 1994, 7 cases occurred in and around Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG), showing 4 types of contamination: among employees working on airstrips or opening containers, among residents living near the airport, among people living at some distance from the airport after a secondary transport of vectors, and by vectors transported in luggage. In-flight or stop-over infection is not considered as airport malaria. The infective anophelines originated from airports where malaria transmission occurs, mostly in subsaharan Africa. A tentative list is given taking into account aerial traffic with France. Surveys in the airports of Dakar (Senegal), Cotonou (Benin), Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) and Yaoundé (Cameroun) found potential vectors in all of these from July to September. After 1994, the Contrôle Sanitaire aux Frontières (CSF) in charge at CDG concentrated its efforts on the flights at risk, as well as information and sensitization of airline companies, which resulted in 73% and 87% of the flights at risk being properly disinsected in 1995 and 1996. Despite pyrethroid resistance in Anopheles gambiae s.s. in West Africa, the efficacy of aircraft spraying with permethrin aerosols is still acceptable. However, surveillance of resistance should be improved and search for nonpyrethroid insecticides suitable for aircraft strongly encouraged.

Autochthonous falciparum malaria possibly transmitted by luggage-carried vector in Paris, France, February 2013

“…Luggage has occasionally been suspected of harbouring indigenous infective Anopheles from an endemic area, possibly causing infections when opened at arrival, as previously reported in Europe: in France (1995), Italy (1989) and Germany (1999) [5][6][7]. For our patient, other possible hypotheses of the origin of the parasite were ruled out by careful questioning of the patient.…”

“…Rarely, autochthonous malaria has been reported in people who had not entered an airport recently and had never travelled to malaria-endemic areas, but for whom transmission was suspected to arise from an infective vector brought after second transport through cars or luggage from the aircraft to the site of transmission [5].…”

Molecular characterisation of airport malaria : four cases in France during summer 1999

“…Since the first descriptions in 1969, airport malaria cases are increasingly reported in Europe (Guillet et al, 1998;Lusina et al, 2000). This could reflect the growth of traffic with the airports located within an area where P. falciparum is actively transmitted or the limits of preventing measures.…”

“…A irport malaria is acquired through the bite of an infective Anopheles mosquito transported by aeroplanes from endemic areas (Giacomini, 1998;Guillet et al, 1998). The first two cases were retrospectively reported in a French illegitimate couple in 1969 (Doby & Guiguen, 1981 (Lusina et al, 2000).…”

Letter to the Editors

“…transported in an aircraft arriving from an area where P. falciparum is actively transmitted. The most likely provenance in this case would be Haiti; an island considered at risk in the review on airport malaria recently published in TM & IH (Guillet et al 1998). An.…”