{"id":125158,"date":"2025-08-07T02:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125158\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T02:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:18:10","slug":"pierce-county-woman-may-have-first-locally-transmitted-case-of-malaria-in-washington-kiro-7-news-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125158\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierce County woman may have first locally transmitted case of malaria in Washington \u2013 KIRO 7 News Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. \u2014 The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department<\/a> says it\u2019s investigating after a local woman was recently infected with malaria. <\/p>\n

They say she hasn\u2019t traveled, and it may be the first-ever case acquired in Washington.<\/p>\n

As part of the investigation, officials are working with the Department of Health to implement mosquito trapping and testing. <\/p>\n

How could this happen? <\/b><\/p>\n

Health officials say there\u2019s a chance that a mosquito bit someone with a travel-associated case of malaria, and then passed the infection onto the Pierce County woman. <\/p>\n

In 2023, the United States saw its first locally acquired case in 20 years.<\/p>\n

What are the risks?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk of getting infected with malaria in Pierce County remains very low,\u201d said Dr. James Miller, Tacoma-Pierce County Health Officer. \u201cMalaria is a rare disease overall in the United States\u2014and the vast majority of cases in the United States occur following exposures in countries with ongoing transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is malaria? <\/b><\/p>\n

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. <\/p>\n

Health officials say it typically causes fever, chills, body aches, headaches, and fatigue. <\/p>\n

It can also cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. <\/p>\n

In most cases, health officials say the incubation period\u2014the time between infection and the start of symptoms\u2014is 7 to 30 days. <\/p>\n

It does not spread directly from one person to another.<\/p>\n

How is it treated? <\/b><\/p>\n

Malaria can be cured with prescription antimalarial drugs. It can be life-threatening if is not diagnosed and treated quickly.<\/p>\n

Cases of malaria <\/b><\/p>\n

Washington sees about 20 to 70 reports of malaria cases each year, linked to travel. <\/p>\n

There are between 2,000 and 5,000 cases in the U.S. annually. <\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. \u2014 The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department says it\u2019s investigating after a local woman was recently…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4749,1761,21131,7026,6923,76989,8777,76990,19635,9729,44520,76991,76992,7768,2327,210,15112,8780,76993,33110,10941,2089,1083,1184,53723,51879,8460,16502,1800,76994,21472,76995,76996,29884,41345,7358,51632,76997,8783,1732,76998,76999,72529,1176,9270,67,132,77000,68,13203,61269],"class_list":{"0":"post-125158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-biology","10":"tag-bite","11":"tag-black","12":"tag-blood","13":"tag-bloodsucking","14":"tag-close-up","15":"tag-dengue","16":"tag-disease","17":"tag-drink","18":"tag-epidemic","19":"tag-fauna","20":"tag-feeding","21":"tag-hair","22":"tag-hand","23":"tag-health","24":"tag-infectious","25":"tag-insect","26":"tag-itching","27":"tag-macro","28":"tag-malaria","29":"tag-man","30":"tag-medical","31":"tag-medicine","32":"tag-mosquito","33":"tag-mosquitoes","34":"tag-needle","35":"tag-one","36":"tag-pain","37":"tag-parasite","38":"tag-parasites","39":"tag-pest","40":"tag-proboscis","41":"tag-skin","42":"tag-small","43":"tag-stabbing","44":"tag-sting","45":"tag-stinger","46":"tag-stinging","47":"tag-strength","48":"tag-suck","49":"tag-sucker","50":"tag-sucking","51":"tag-summer","52":"tag-tropical","53":"tag-united-states","54":"tag-unitedstates","55":"tag-unsanitary","56":"tag-us","57":"tag-virus","58":"tag-zoom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}