A Malaria Outbreak Without Mosquitoes

A Taiwanese businessmen traveled to Nigeria in 1995 and inadvertently caused a small outbreak in a general teaching hospital in Taipei, a country free of malaria since its eradication in the 1960s. Until this uncommon outbreak, every single case of malaria in Taipei had been directly traced to an individual’s recent travels to an endemic region.

Two weeks after the hospital admission of this ill businessman, an additional four patients developed unusual fevers that were identified as being malarial in origin. Yet none of these group of five patients shared a history of blood transfusions nor any common exposures, aside from treatment within the same hospital, that would predispose them to malaria.

Read more:
Microbial Misadventures: A Malaria Outbreak Without Mosquitoes - Body Horrors 

Source: Discover Magazine
Image credits: Wikimedia