The findings indicate that there is an age-acquired immunity in this population and that there might be host genetic variants that might have links with the generation and/or maintenance of anti malarial antibodies that are maintained at high levels in this population in spite of the low incidence of malaria reported. This could be either an individual or a combined effect of these variants since some of the markers were seen to be in linkage disequilibrium.

First author was MalariaGEN Data Fellow Rajika Dewasurendra working with primary investigator Professor Nadira Karunaweera and other researchers in collaboration with MalariaGEN.

Publication

Dewasurendra et al. Genetic polymorphisms associated with antimalarial antibody levels in a low and unstable malaria transmission area in southern Sri Lanka. Malar J. 2012 Aug 20;11:281. doi:10.1186/1475-2875-11-281.