Loading
There is evidence that infection with intestinal helminths is associated with an increased relative risk of clinical malaria. A possible explanation for this is that intestinal helminth infections have the potential to bias antibody responses to malaria. Helminth infected individuals respond to malaria infection predominantly by the production of so called non-cytophilic antibodies that are not protective.||Comparatively little is known about the interaction of malaria and lymphatic filariasis or Onchocerciasis, mainly because definitive cure for these diseases is hard to achieve. Recently, studies carried out in malaria endemic areas have shown that treatment with doxycycline is effective against these pathogens, resulting in the killing of the adult worms.||Using serum samples from these studies we investigated if the clearance of the adult worms results in an altered antibody profile against malaria.||We found that the profiles of malaria specific antibodies were similar before and after treatment of filarial worms.||Importantly, the malaria-antibody profile observed in Ghanaian patients infected with filarial worms prior to treatment was similar to that seen in studies in the Gambia, where filarial infections are virtually absent. This suggests that infection with filarial worms may not affect the quality of the antibody response to malaria infection.
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write('<div id="oa_widget"></div>');
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.openaire.eu/index.php?option=com_openaire&view=widget&format=raw&projectId=ukri________::e892ca8db84b4b916ac9513b159378f6&type=result"></script>');
-->
</script>