Gupta S, Trenholme K, Anderson R M, Day K P
Department of Zoology, Oxford University, United Kingdom.
Science. 1994 Feb 18;263(5149):961-3. doi: 10.1126/science.8310293.
The average age of humans at their first infection with Plasmodium falciparum is typically less than 1 year in most endemic areas. This has been interpreted as evidence of the high transmissibility of the parasite, with the implication that control of malaria will require high levels of coverage with a potential vaccine. This interpretation is challenged by mathematical models that demonstrate that the long period required to develop immunity to malaria permits a high risk (or low average age) of infection even when parasite transmissibility is low. Patterns of seroconversion to five antigenically distinct isolates of P. falciparum in a highly malarious area of Papua New Guinea indicate that each is only mildly transmissible and that malaria, as a construct of several such independently transmitted strains, has a basic reproductive rate (or transmissibility) that is an order of magnitude lower than other estimates.
在大多数疟疾流行地区，人类首次感染恶性疟原虫的平均年龄通常小于1岁。这被解释为该寄生虫具有高传播性的证据，这意味着控制疟疾将需要高覆盖率的潜在疫苗。这种解释受到数学模型的挑战，这些模型表明，即使寄生虫传播率较低，由于产生疟疾免疫力所需的时间较长，感染风险仍可能很高（或平均年龄较低）。在巴布亚新几内亚一个疟疾高发地区，针对五种抗原性不同的恶性疟原虫分离株的血清转化模式表明，每种分离株的传播性都较低，而且作为几种此类独立传播菌株的组合，疟疾的基本繁殖率（或传播性）比其他估计值低一个数量级。
