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Is it possible to get herd immunity to malaria? Does the parasite have non-human reservoirs (for the non-mosquito part of its lifecycle)?
by tgb 6y ago
Is it possible to get herd immunity to malaria? Does the parasite have non-human reservoirs (for the non-mosquito part of its lifecycle)?
- lisper 6y agoYes and yes: https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-018-2328-z https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22215999/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22215999/
- tgb 6y agoThanks. I can't actually see where the second paper says that there are reservoirs, at least not of P. falciparum, which is the most relevant. It doesn't directly state it but seems to suggest that there's little in the way of human infections that arise from another species.
- yyyk 6y agoThe first link just says people would accept the vaccine. It doesn't get at all to the heart of OP's concern (that the parasite will hide in non-human reservoirs).
- Fomite 6y agoThe parasite has non-human reservoirs, which is one of many reasons that eradicating malaria is extremely difficult. That being said, a protective vaccine even absent herd immunity would be a huge thing.