Why have just five cases of malaria in the US prompted such an alert? The five cases have raised alert because this is the first time in 20 years that there has been local transmission of malaria in the United States.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning doctors and public health officials about a handful of locally acquired cases of malaria. There hasn’t been a case of malaria caught locally in the US in 20 years.

Typically, if Americans get sick with malaria they’ve caught it while traveling overseas in areas where malaria is more common. Malaria is a disease spread when the female anopheline mosquito feeds on a person with malaria and then feeds on another.

The mosquito can be found in certain regions in the US, but malaria is still rare in the US. Worldwide there are 240 million cases each year, 95% in Africa.

That could change with the climate crisis. Scientists have been warning people that malaria could become more common in the US as temperatures warm.
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