Specialists of the local epidemiology team started laboratory investigations to determine the origin of the contagion and to find other possible suspects in that region of the Paraná department, said the source, quoted by ABC Color newspaper.

The National Malaria Eradication Service also put its entomological search and vector control mechanisms into action, especially in the surroundings of the sick person, a Brazilian national who is studying at university in Ciudad del Este and comes from the Amazon region of that state.

Health authorities issued the alert to prevent the spread of malaria among the population of the Guarani nation, which has been certified since 2028 as free of malaria transmission by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).

Malaria, whose possible symptoms include fever, vomiting and headache, which in some infected people can lead to death, is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito of the genus Anopheles.

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