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Comment by garbawarb | Hacker News Reader

Could these mosquitoes lead to malaria becoming endemic in Germany?

No. They only survive in tropical/subtropical regions.

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.

Sadly, maybe wait 5 to 10 decades then it could exist in many areas were it does not now.

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.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8277918/

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."

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.

> 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.

You'd think that, but anecdotally there was much fewer this year in Germany than previous years.

At least where I live most of the places where they'd have usually spawned (wetlands) have dried up and shrunk considerably. So really the hot weather made it a worse year for mosquitos.

I don’t think DDT works for the new strains of Malaria mosquitoes we have nowadays.

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.

It's wild to watch old videos of DDT application and attitudes back then.

https://youtu.be/-UiCSvQvVys

Plenty more out there.

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...

That's the "treat cases" element of the story.

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.

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").

No, most probably the mosquitoes will not survive the winter. Besides, given enough effort, Malaria can be eradicated and even a poor tropical country like Sri Lanka has has done that where mosquitoes are quite common throughout the year

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.

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