Research
Failure to detect Plasmodium vivax in West and Central Africa by PCR species typing
-
* Corresponding authors: Richard L Culleton richard@nagasaki-u.ac.jp - Kazuyuki Tanabe kztanabe@bkns01.biken.osaka-u.ac.jp
1 Laboratory of Malariology, International Research Centre of Infectious Diseases, Research Institute of Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
2 Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan
3 Centre d'Etudes des Resources Vegetales, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
4 Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
5 Centro de Malária e Outras Doenças Tropicais, Lisbon, Portugal
6 Department of Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital, Solna, Sweden
7 Istituto Pasteur, Fondazione Cenci-Bolognetti, Università di Roma 'La Sapienza', Rome, Italy
8 Medical Research Unit, Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Lambaréné, Gabon
9 Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
10 Centre Muraz, Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
11 Programme Nationale de Lutte Integrée contre le Paludisme, Kigali, Rwanda
12 Department of Protozoology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
Malaria Journal 2008, 7:174 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-7-174
Published: 11 September 2008Abstract
Background
Plasmodium vivax is estimated to affect 75 million people annually. It is reportedly absent, however, from west and central Africa due to the high prevalence of the Duffy negative phenotype in the indigenous populations. Despite this, non-African travellers consistently return to their own countries with P. vivax malaria after visiting this region. An attempt was made, therefore, to detect the presence of P. vivax parasites in blood samples collected from the indigenous populations of west and central Africa.
Methods
Parasite species typing (for all four human malaria parasites) was carried out by PCR on 2,588 blood samples collected from individuals from nine African malaria-endemic countries.
Results
Most infections (98.5%) were Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium malariae was identified in 8.5% of all infections, and Plasmodium ovale in 3.9%. The prevalence of both parasites varied greatly by country. Only one case of P. vivax was detected from Sao Tome, an island off the west coast of Africa, confirming the scarcity of this parasite in Africa.
Conclusion
The prevalence of P. vivax in local populations in sub-Saharan Africa is very low, despite the frequent identification of this parasite in non-African travellers.