Increasingly inbred and fragmented populations of Plasmodium vivax associated with the eastward decline in malaria transmission across the Southwest Pacific.

ABSTRACT: The human malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax is more resistant to malaria control strategies than Plasmodium falciparum, and maintains high genetic diversity even when transmission is low. To investigate whether declining P. vivax transmission leads to increasing population structure that would facilitate elimination, we genotyped samples from across the Southwest Pacific region, which experiences an eastward decline in malaria transmission, as well as samples from two time points at one site (Tetere, Solomon Islands) during intensified malaria control. Analysis of 887 P. vivax microsatellite haplotypes from hyperendemic Papua New Guinea (PNG, n = 443), meso-hyperendemic Solomon Islands (n = 420), and hypoendemic Vanuatu (n = 24) revealed increasing population structure and multilocus linka

SUBMITTER: Waltmann A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5802943 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature