This is a first since July 2020. Twelve Aboriginal cases of malaria have been detected in Mayotte since the start of the year, including ten in July, announced Tuesday, August 12, 2025 the Regional Public Health France (SPF). There were “One in February, one in June and ten in July 2025”indicates SPF in its regional epidemiological bulletin.
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Mostly cases from Comoros
In total, 66 cases of malaria were identified on the small French archipelago of the Indian Ocean, the majority of imported cases coming from neighboring Comoros. If 26 people have been hospitalized and five admitted to intensive care “No death has been recorded”specifies SPF.
“In the past five years, we have only identified imported cases, mainly from the Comoros but also from Madagascar and the country of continental Africa […]. But the increase in the number of imported cases favored the proliferation of locally ”disease”explained to theAgency France-Presse (AFP) Youssouf Hassani, the regional public health delegate France.
“These figures show that the risk of reintroduction of the disease is there. Above all, we must pay attention to the epidemic outbreak that takes place in the Comoros ”he added, while refusing to speak of « reprise » From the epidemic to Mayotte. In 2024, 119 imported cases had been recorded in Mayotte, compared to 38 in 2023.
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A territory “in the elimination phase of malaria”
The incidence of indigenous cases of malaria has regularly decreased in Mayotte since the early 2000s, from almost 2,000 cases reported in 2002 to only two in 2020, then until this year. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Mayotte among “Territories in the elimination phase of malaria”.
Malaria has also been almost eradicated in the Comoros between 2010 and 2016. But this country, whose nearest island (Anjouan) is only 70 km from Mayotte, faces a resurgence of the disease in recent years, even if the number of cases remains far from 103,600 recorded in 2010.