Researchers recently determined that a new form of malaria is making its way towards Africa from Asia and Latin America. The new malaria is Plasmodium vivax.
They have found signs of this new malaria in studies on the African population and under the microscope.
With common strains of malaria, the vivax protozoan takes over the Duffy protein to get access into the red blood cells (RBC). Africans do not have the Duffy protein in their genetic makeup, which puts them at an advantage to not contract malaria. The nonexistence of the Duffy protein means that the vivax protozoan has no way to enter the blood stream.
As we all know, uncommon strains of a virus/disease/bacteria can be detrimental. The researchers have noticed that this new strain may not necessarily be giving malaria to the population, but causing the population to become sick in a different way. This is all preliminary still, but it will be interesting to see what else is uncovered about this new finding...
Very interesting. Well at least we ca say that Africa's population is safe for the most part because they lack the protein to contract this particular strain
ReplyDeleteYeah. Hopefully it stays that way.
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