Erunkulu O A, Hill A V, Kwiatkowski D P, Todd J E, Iqbal J, Berzins K, Riley E M, Greenwood B M
Medical Research Council Laboratories, Banjul, The Gambia.
Clin Exp Immunol. 1992 Aug;89(2):296-300. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2249.1992.tb06948.x.
The reasons why only a small proportion of African children infected with Plasmodium falciparum develop severe or fatal malaria are not known. One possible reason is that children who develop severe disease have had less previous exposure to malaria infection, and hence have less acquired immunity, than children who develop a mild clinical attack. To investigate this possibility we have measured titres of a wide range of anti-P. falciparum antibodies in plasma samples obtained from children with severe malaria, children with mild malaria and from children with other illnesses. Mean antibody levels in patients with malaria were higher than those in patients with other conditions but, with only one exception, there were no significant differences in antibody titres between cases of severe or mild malaria. A parasitized-erythrocyte agglutination assay was used to estimate the diversity of parasite isolates to which children had been exposed; plasma samples obtained from children with cerebral malaria recognized as many isolates as did samples obtained from children with mild disease. Our findings do not provide any support for the view that the development of severe malaria in a small proportion of African children infected with P. falciparum is due to lack of previous exposure to the infection.
仅有一小部分感染恶性疟原虫的非洲儿童会发展为严重或致命性疟疾，其原因尚不清楚。一个可能的原因是，与出现轻度临床发作的儿童相比，发展为严重疾病的儿童既往接触疟疾感染的机会较少，因此获得性免疫力较低。为了研究这种可能性，我们检测了从患有严重疟疾的儿童、患有轻度疟疾的儿童以及患有其他疾病的儿童获取的血浆样本中多种抗恶性疟原虫抗体的滴度。疟疾患者的平均抗体水平高于其他疾病患者，但除一个例外情况外，严重或轻度疟疾病例之间的抗体滴度没有显著差异。采用寄生红细胞凝集试验来估计儿童接触过的寄生虫分离株的多样性；从患有脑型疟疾的儿童获取的血浆样本识别出的分离株数量与从患有轻度疾病的儿童获取的样本一样多。我们的研究结果并不支持以下观点，即一小部分感染恶性疟原虫的非洲儿童发展为严重疟疾是由于既往缺乏对该感染的接触。
