Prenatal malaria exposure increases risk of malaria and anaemia for some children
Some babies who are exposed to malaria before birth develop a tolerant phenotype that increases their susceptibility to malaria and anaemia in childhood, says a new study in the open access journal PLoS Medicine. Indu Malhotra and Christopher King (Case Western Reserve University) and colleagues studied 586 newborns residing in a malaria-holoendemic area of Kenya to age three, assessing their malaria infection, malaria-specific immune responses, and anaemia, and classifying them into three groups: 'sensitised' babies in which cord blood cells made activating cytokines in response to malaria antigens; 'exposed, not-sensitised' babies in which cord blood cells did not make activating cytokines but made an inhibitory cytokine (IL-10); and 'not-exposed' babies born to uninfected mothers...