Multispecies Plasmodium infections of humans.
We analyzed point-prevalence data from 19 recent studies of human populations in which either Plasmodium ovale or Plasmodium vivax co-occur with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium malariae. Although the only statistical interactions among, sympatric congeners are pairwise, the frequencies of mixed-species infections relative to standard hypotheses of species sampling independence show no strong relation to overall malaria prevalence. The striking difference between the P. falciparum-P. malariae-P. ovale and the P. falciparum-P. malariae-P. vivax data is that the first typically shows a statistical surplus of mixed-species infections and the second a deficit. This suggests that the number of Plasmodium species present in a human population may be less important in determining the frequencies of mixed-species infections than is the identity of those species.
McKenzie
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Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Bossert
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D000349:Africa / Q000453:epidemiology; D000818:Animals; D001210:Asia, Southeastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D010139:Pacific Islands / Q000453:epidemiology; D010961:Plasmodium / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000502:physiology*; D010965:Plasmodium malariae / Q000502:physiology*; D010966:Plasmodium vivax / Q000502:physiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D013045:Species Specificity