Duffy-negative blood types no longer protected from P. vivax malaria

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:42 in Health & Medicine

In a paradigm changing discovery, Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax) malaria has been identified in a population historically thought to be resistant to the disease, those who do not express the Duffy blood group protein on their red blood cells, according to researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Pasteur Institute, and the Madagascar Ministry of Health. In a study of more than 600 individuals from eight communities covering the main malaria transmission areas of Madagascar, the researchers found that 10 percent of people experiencing clinical malaria were Duffy-negative and infected with P. vivax. These findings were published in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)...

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