While the role of malaria parasite-specific memory CD8(+) T cells in the control of exo-erythrocytic stages of malaria infection is well documented and generally accepted, a debate is still ongoing regarding both the identity of the anatomic site where the activation of naive pathogen-specific T cells is taking place and contribution of different antigen-presenting cells (APCs) into this proces...

The malaria disease has become a cause of poverty and a major hindrance to economic development. The culprit of the disease is the parasite, which secretes an array of proteins within the host erythrocyte to facilitate its own survival. Accordingly, the secretory proteins of malaria parasite have become a logical target for drug design against malaria. Unfortunately, with the increasing resista...

When John Donne stated, " No man is an island, " he could have been meditating on microbes and their interactions. Some agents provoke expression of a second infectious disease by disrupting immune mechanisms; of these, human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS is the most well-known, predisposing to tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobac-terium avium), cryptococcosis, cryptospo-ri...

Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are non microscopic tests that provide a rapid detection of malaria infections in infected individuals. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of ParaHit and OptiMAL tests for detection of malaria infections as compared with routine microscopy. This facility-based study was carried out in Mwanza, north-western Tanzania and involved outp...

OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of percentage parasitemia and clinical features on morbidity and mortality in patients with P. falciparum malaria. STUDY DESIGN Case series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Department of Medicine, Medical Unit II, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, Pakistan from May to November 2005. PATIENTS AND METHODS Seventy-six adult patients of smear positive ...

Development of new and more powerful antimalarial drugs has become more complex because of emergence of multidrug resistant strains of P. falciparum. Due to resistance of malaria parasite against well-known available drugs, the chemotherapy of malaria has become more complex and challenging. In this review we have discussed the life cycle of malaria parasite followed by quinoline based antimala...

Malaria, which is a major infectious disease worldwide, is caused by the Plasmodium parasite, one of the longest-known parasites infecting humans. The malaria situation is complicated by the emergence of drug resistance and the lack of an effective vaccine. Genetic factors play a key role in disease susceptibility, progression and outcome. Interestingly, an increasing large number of polymorphi...

Malaria infection crisis, at which the parasitemia drops precipitously and the parasite loses infectivity to the mosquito vector, occurs in many natural malaria systems, and has not been explained. We demonstrate that in a simian malaria parasite (Plasmodium cynomolgi in its natural host, the toque monkey), the loss of infectivity during crisis is due to the death of circulating intraerythrocyt...

Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum , remains one of the most fatal parasitic diseases that has affected nearly a third world’s population. The major impediment to treatment malaria is emergence resistance P. parasite current anti-malaria therapeutics such as Artemisinin (ART)-based combination therapy (ACT). This resulted in countless efforts develop novel will counter this with aim contro...

BACKGROUND While WHO recently recommended universal parasitological confirmation of suspected malaria prior to treatment, debate has continued as to whether wide-scale use of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) can achieve this goal. Adherence of health service personnel to RDT results has been poor in some settings, with little impact on anti-malarial drug consumption. The Senegal national malaria c...