QUESTION I recently read an ISOS world malaria day poster saying 5 species of plasmodium cause malaria. I think that is confusing as we always talked about 4, ovale, vivax, falciparum and malaria....are they referring to the way we now split ovale into 2 sub species? or is this a typo on their part? ANSWER That is a really interesting question, and a good observation on your part! I … [Read more...]
Evolution of Malaria
QUESTION how did malaria evolve? ANSWER Malaria in humans probably evolved independently several times, and both times likely due to a cross-over event from a closely related primate malaria. For example, Plasmodium vivax is evolutionarily closely related to several species of malaria found in macaque monkeys in south-east Asia, and so a cross-over of one of those species into human, with … [Read more...]