According to the China View, an international research team recently has found that, the Africans who were previously consider as the herd immunity to Plasmodium vivax also may be affected by this disease. This research result turns the cognizance many people cognize to this disease.
A research team consisted by researchers who come from France, the United States of America and Madagascar publishes a report: “Plasmodium vivax which is the ‘chief culprit’ of malarial fewer.” Plasmodium vivax is a kind of the plasmodium mainly remains in the Asian regions and the South America regions. Before then, there was a popular belief that the population whose red blood cells surfaces are short of the protein named Duffy are born to be immune to Plasmodium vivax. Because the protein named Duffy is the receptor of Plasmodium vivax. The plasmodium cannot invade the bloodstream without this protein. The Duffy test results of the blood of most African are negative, which means that their blood do not contain this protein. To a certain degree, this result also has explained why people of Africa are seldom infected by Plasmodium vivax.
On the contrary, researchers recently have observed part of the residents living in Madagascar, and after that they have found that some residents with Duffy protein negative are also infected by Plasmodium vivax. This result shows that the latter has jumped over Duffy protein but has invaded red blood cells through another “path”. The Duffy protein is no longer the necessary condition of spreading Plasmodium vivax. However, at present, its mechanism needed to further study by researchers.
Researchers said that, 7000 to 8000 ten thousand infection cases of the Plasmodium vivax are found every year in the world. This new discovery has changed their previous view on the herd immunity to Plasmodium vivax.