Two other malaria cases have been recorded in Queensland Residents have warned that potentially fatal disease can also lead to long -term cognitive crises and problems.
Queensland Health said that new cases of user -acquired malaria were carrying the number of infections in the state this year.
The second locally acquired infection was recently found in the local government area of the Torres Strait Islands.
This year, the vast majority of cases (97%) come from abroad, mainly from Papua Nouvelle-Guinée and from the Solomon Islands.
This is a disturbing trend since four cases were recorded during the same period in 2021. Twenty were recorded in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 69 in 2024.
The recent wild weather in the extreme north of Queensland played a role in the peak in cases.
Fall was one of the wet in Queensland’s history, beating 100 -year records and stagnating flood waters a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Malaria is avoidable and curable and cannot have passed from one person to another and spreads through the bites of the infected mosquitoes of the anophes.
Australians in the far north of Queensland must be vigilant against malaria
Fall was one of the wet in Queensland history, beating 100 -year records with flood waters a reproduction ground for mosquitoes (photo, floods in Giru, south of Townsville, February 9, 2025)
The director of infectious health diseases, Paul Griffin, said ABC The epidemic would be contained in the far north of Australia.
“We have no mosquitoes capable of passing malaria throughout the country, but certainly in the most tropical regions of our country, the northern territory and the northern Queensland regions,” he said.
“This is why in the fields, we need to give people advice to ensure that we reduce the chances of local transmission.”
The last cases acquired on the continent in Australia took place during an epidemic in northern Queensland in 2002.
“Malaria was something we had transmitted to Australia, but due to a multitude of different interventions locally, malaria has acquired malaria that we have really treated for forty years,” said Griffin.
Griffin, however, warned that people at risk of catching the disease should take the threat seriously.
“With larger types of malaria, the serious consequences can be an involvement of the brain, so brain malaria and even death,” he said.
“This is something that we have to take seriously and make sure that we take measures to limit the quantity of transmission in our country.”
The most common early symptoms of malaria are fever, headache and chills and they usually start within 10 to 15 days of mortar by an infected mosquito.