Boy was unvaccinated

Child dies of diphtheria in Germany

The child was last treated at the Charité hospital in Berlin.

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A terrible death drama in Berlin involving a ten-year-old boy that could have been prevented by a single jab: the schoolboy had contracted diphtheria - after four months he succumbed to the serious illness. 

According to earlier information from the Brandenburg Ministry of Health, the child from Brandenburg had not been vaccinated. The then ten-year-old schoolchild was admitted to the Clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in Potsdam in September due to an acute inflammation of the tonsils. Diphtheria was later diagnosed.

Vaccinated child had a mild course of the disease 
Due to his state of health, the child was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where he was given invasive ventilation. The boy went to a Waldorf school in Berlin. Through contact tracing by the public health department, another person in the child's family was diagnosed with diphtheria. However, the district of Havelland announced at the time that the person had only had a mild course of the disease due to vaccination protection.

Doctor warns of consequences of lack of vaccination
"Many people think that doctors can already treat these diseases nowadays. But that's not the case in many cases," said Bernhard Kosak, Head of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Klinikum Westbrandenburg, to the "Märkische Allgemeine" newspaper in the autumn. "That's not true for meningococci, pneumococci, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and tetanus. I can only treat them to a limited extent or not at all - there is still a high risk of secondary damage."

The diphtheria pathogen under the microscope

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Dr_Microbe)

In the case of cutaneous diphtheria, infected people may have sores on their skin or, in the case of pharyngeal diphtheria, an inflamed nasopharynx. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), symptoms of pharyngeal diphtheria include a sore throat, fever, whistling noises when inhaling and swelling of the cervical lymph nodes. Tonsillitis can occur later.

Hardly any infections in Germany and Austria for a long time
According to the RKI, diphtheria deaths are very rare in Germany. In 2023, one death due to cutaneous diphtheria in an adult was reported to the RKI. In 2024, there was one death due to respiratory diphtheria in an adult.

After 20 diphtheria-free years, individual cases of mucosal diphtheria or cutaneous diphtheria have been reported in Austria since 2014. In 2022, 62 cases of diphtheria were confirmed. One diphtheria case was fatal. In 2023, a total of four cases of diphtheria were reported.

Vaccinations rapidly reduced the number of cases
In contrast, diphtheria was once known as the "choking angel of children". In 1892, more than 50,000 mostly young people succumbed to the infection in Germany. Vaccination was introduced in 1913, which significantly reduced the number of infections. According to the RKI, there were 51 confirmed cases in Germany in 2024 and two so far in 2025.

The vaccination is included in the free vaccination program in Austria and is vaccinated as part of the six vaccinations according to the two-plus-one schedule in the third, fifth and eleventh to twelfth month of life. According to the recommendation of the National Immunization Committee (NIG), the first booster vaccination should be given at the age of six. In order to quickly contain the current incidence of infection with whooping cough (pertussis), a second booster vaccination is now recommended after five years or at the latest at the age of 14 or 15. According to the NIG, everyone should be vaccinated against diphtheria in combination with tetanus, pertussis and polio.