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ABSTRACT: Background
Infants are protected against Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Mechanisms that drive this protection remain unclear due to a poor understanding of malaria clinical phenotypes during infancy.Methods
We enrolled a birth cohort of 678 infants in Busia, Uganda, an area of high malaria transmission. We followed infants through 12 months of age and quantified protection against parasitemia and clinical disease.Results
Symptomatic malaria incidence increased from 1.2 to 2.6 episodes per person-year between 0 and <6 months and between 6 and 12 months of age, while the monthly probability of asymptomatic parasitemia given infection decreased from 32% to 21%. Sickle cell trait (HbAS) was protective against symptomatic malaria (incidence rate ratio = 0.57 comparing HbAS vs hemoglobin AA (HbAA); 95% confidence interval, 0.44-0.74; P < .001), but age modified this relationship (Pint = <0.001), with nonlinear protection that waned between 0 and 9 months of age before increasing. Increasing age was associated with higher parasite densities at the time of infection and, in infants with HbAS, a reduced ability to tolerate high parasite densities without fever.Conclusions
Age-dependent changes in HbAS protective efficacy in infancy were accompanied by differential loss of antiparasite and antidisease protection among HbAS and HbAA infants. This provides a framework for investigating the mechanisms that underlie infant protection against malaria.Clinical trials registration
NCT02793622.
SUBMITTER: Zehner N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8599196 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Zehner Nicholas N Adrama Harriet H Kakuru Abel A Andra Teddy T Kajubi Richard R Conrad Melissa M Nankya Felistas F Clark Tamara D TD Kamya Moses M Rodriguez-Barraquer Isabel I Dorsey Grant G Jagannathan Prasanna P
Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 20211101 10
<h4>Background</h4>Infants are protected against Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Mechanisms that drive this protection remain unclear due to a poor understanding of malaria clinical phenotypes during infancy.<h4>Methods</h4>We enrolled a birth cohort of 678 infants in Busia, Uganda, an area of high malaria transmission. We followed infants through 12 months of age and quantified protection against parasitemia and clinical disease.<h4>Results</h4>Symptomatic malaria incidence increased from 1.2 to ...[more]