LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Asymptomatic Plasmodium vivax malaria in the Brazilian Amazon: Submicroscopic parasitemic blood infects Nyssorhynchus darlingi

Photo from wikipedia

Individuals with asymptomatic infection due to Plasmodium vivax are posited to be important reservoirs of malaria transmission in endemic regions. Here we studied a cohort of P. vivax malaria patients… Click to show full abstract

Individuals with asymptomatic infection due to Plasmodium vivax are posited to be important reservoirs of malaria transmission in endemic regions. Here we studied a cohort of P. vivax malaria patients in a suburban area in the Brazilian Amazon. Overall 1,120 individuals were screened for P. vivax infection and 108 (9.6%) had parasitemia detected by qPCR but not by microscopy. Asymptomatic individuals had higher levels of antibodies against P. vivax and similar hematological and biochemical parameters compared to uninfected controls. Blood from asymptomatic individuals with very low parasitemia transmitted P. vivax to the main local vector, Nyssorhynchus darlingi. Lower mosquito infectivity rates were observed when blood from asymptomatic individuals was used in the membrane feeding assay. While blood from symptomatic patients infected 43.4% (199/458) of the mosquitoes, blood from asymptomatic infected 2.5% (43/1,719). However, several asymptomatic individuals maintained parasitemia for several weeks indicating their potential role as an infectious reservoir. These results suggest that asymptomatic individuals are an important source of malaria parasites and Science and Technology for Vaccines granted by Conselho Nacional de may contribute to the transmission of P. vivax in low-endemicity areas of malaria.

Keywords: vivax malaria; vivax; plasmodium vivax; blood; asymptomatic individuals

Journal Title: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Year Published: 2021

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.