In this retrospective analysis, Aye Sandar Zaw and colleagues report the successful elimination of falciparum malaria following the introduction of community-based health workers in Eastern Myanmar
Malaria, a disease caused mainly by the parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, is associated with over 400,000 deaths each year. Previously, the spleen was assumed to mostly play a role in parasite destruction, as it eliminates malaria parasites after antimalarial treatment. A study published by Steven Kho and Nicholas Anstey at Menzies School of Health Research, Australia, and international colleagues, suggests that in chronic P. vivax infections, malaria parasites survive and replicate via a previously undetected lifecycle within the spleen.
Credit: Esther Max, Flickr. Rotated from original.
Women may be at greater risk of experiencing chronic pain because the condition has a different genetic basis in men and women. Keira Johnston of the University of Glasgow and colleagues report these findings in a new study published April 8th in
PLOS Genetics.
Chronic pain is a common and potentially debilitating condition that tends to affect more women than men. To explore this disparity, researchers undertook the largest ever genetic study of chronic pain that analyzed women and men separately. They looked for genetic variants associated with chronic pain in 209,093 women and 178,556 men, and compared the results. In women, 31 genes were associated with chronic pain, while 37 genes were linked in men. A single gene was associated with chronic pain in both sexes. The researchers also investigated whether the activity of these genes was turned up or down in tissues known to be related to chronic pain. They found that all 37 ge