Review
Interactions between worms and malaria: Good worms or bad worms?
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Correspondence: Mathieu Nacher mathieu.nacher@ch-cayenne.fr
Centre d'investigation Clinique épidémiologie Clinique Antilles-Guyane, CIC EC Inserm CIE 802, Centre Hospitalier de Cayenne, French Guiana
Equipe EA 35 93, Epidémiologie des parasitoses et mycoses tropicales, Université Antille-Guyane, Campus Saint Denis, Cayenne, French Guiana
Department of Tropical Medicine, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, USA
Malaria Journal 2011, 10:259 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-10-259
Published: 12 September 2011Abstract
In the past decade there have been an increasing number of studies on co-infections between worms and malaria. However, this increased interest has yielded results that have been at times conflicting and made it difficult to clearly grasp the outcome of this interaction. Despite the heterogeneity of study designs, reviewing the growing body of research may be synthesized into some broad trends: Ascaris emerges mostly as protective from malaria and its severe manifestations, whereas hookworm seems to increase malaria incidence. As efforts are made to de-worm populations in malaria endemic areas, there is still no clear picture of the impact these programmes have in terms of quantitative and qualitative changes in malaria.