Antibodies have drawn a spotlight over the past year and a half as scientists and lay people alike have asked how long the infection-fighting proteins persist in the face of a formidable enemy a pandemic virus that has been transmitted on every continent of the planet.

Yet, even as SARS-CoV-2 continues as an infection of international concern, scientists have been quietly conducting antibody research in connection with other infectious diseases, and have made a striking new discovery involving one of the worst scourges that has stalked humankind for tens of thousands of years: malaria.

Led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, the team also found that a population in Mali, West Africa, possesses resistance to the disease because of the activity of IgA antibodies.

Malaria is caused by any one of four one-celled organisms of the Plasmodium group: Plasmodium falsiparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium malariae. Currently, the parasitic disease, which damages red blood cells and causes joint pain, fever, hemolytic anemia and hemoglobin in the urine, is responsible for 400,000 deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.

The parasite, a protozoan, is transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes, whose saliva transfers the organism into the victim's bloodstream during a bite. The new research focused on malaria caused by P. falciparum, which is associated with elevated rates of morbidity and mortality.

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John
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Immunogenetics Open Access