diff --git a/a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c.patch b/a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..62d3fa7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+From a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
+From: =?UTF-8?q?Jean-No=C3=ABl=20Avila?= <jn.avila@free.fr>
+Date: Thu, 20 May 2021 08:48:25 +0200
+Subject: [PATCH] Instead of using a regex, use subsbtring matching for flags
+
+This change mitigates #302 when perl exhibits the bug
+https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/18604
+
+and seems to speed up flag matching.
+
+fix #302
+---
+ NEWS                  | 1 +
+ lib/Locale/Po4a/Po.pm | 2 +-
+ 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
+
+diff --git a/lib/Locale/Po4a/Po.pm b/lib/Locale/Po4a/Po.pm
+index 5127bf6ea..16c0689fe 100644
+--- a/lib/Locale/Po4a/Po.pm
++++ b/lib/Locale/Po4a/Po.pm
+@@ -1467,7 +1467,7 @@ sub push_raw {
+         $flags = " $flags ";
+         $flags =~ s/,/ /g;
+         foreach my $flag (@known_flags) {
+-            if ( $flags =~ /\s$flag\s/ ) {    # if flag to be set
++			if (index($flags, " $flag ") != -1) {     # if flag to be set
+                 unless ( defined( $self->{po}{$msgid}{'flags'} )
+                     && $self->{po}{$msgid}{'flags'} =~ /\b$flag\b/ )
+                 {
diff --git a/po4a.changes b/po4a.changes
index a86da3c..7b3323d 100644
--- a/po4a.changes
+++ b/po4a.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Fri Sep 10 20:17:45 UTC 2021 - Marcus Rueckert <mrueckert@suse.de>
+
+- backport https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/commit/a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c.patch
+  this works around a memory leak in perl
+  https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/18604
+  https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/issues/317
+  https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/issues/302
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sat Jul 10 00:41:40 UTC 2021 - Pau Garcia Quiles <pau.garcia@suse.com>
 
diff --git a/po4a.spec b/po4a.spec
index c8b7fc0..347c4b1 100644
--- a/po4a.spec
+++ b/po4a.spec
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ Group:          Development/Tools/Other
 %endif
 URL:            https://po4a.org/
 Source:         https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/releases/download/v%{version}/%{name}-%{version}.tar.gz
+Patch0:         https://github.com/mquinson/po4a/commit/a69b48eda3ebd66eec30a34a377c7a00c6f8e36c.patch
 
 %if "%{_vendor}" == "debbuild"
 BuildRequires:  deb-perl-macros
@@ -107,6 +108,7 @@ po4a supports currently the following formats:
 
 %prep
 %setup -q
+%patch0 -p1
 
 %build
 perl Build.PL installdirs=vendor