When Malaria Makes The Body Fight Itself

Mosquito, carrier of malaria germ. Many diseases plague man and one of such is malaria. Medical experts have also warned that malaria can also make the body work contrary to itself, as well as destroy the red blood cells that help to supply all parts of the body with oxygen which makes us a living being, reports Sade Oguntola.

MALARIA infection might cause children’s immune systems to attack their own DNA, resulting in more severe health problems than in adults, a new discovery, by a team of scientists from Nigeria and the US have said. The scientists tested blood samples of 21 Nigerian children from the Barkin Ladi Village Clinic, under the age of six, who were infected with plasmodium falciparum malaria and tested for the presence of different immune components such as cytokines – signalling chemicals released by the immune system — and antibodies.

They speculated that DNA causes the immune system to attack its own cells — known as auto-immunity — which, in children, leads to a worse state of sickness. Auto-immune-like response is said to have a different effect in adults, particularly those repeatedly exposed to malaria. Adults have a more developed immune system, and the response actually helps strengthen protection against the parasite. Adults, with their more developed immune systems, can often be repeatedly exposed to malaria and benefit from a better immune system response and stronger protection against the parasite.

According to Virginia Baker, a US-based researcher at Chipola College and a co-author of the study, with this new light shed on how children respond to falciparum malaria, it is clear that one of the reasons malaria is more of a problem in children is because children “are making antibodies that are not protective.” However, the researchers believe that their new findings may also show why some vaccines, which use DNA as an agent to increase immunity, fail to work. They said it might mean that such vaccines may, in fact, need an immuno-suppressant in order to confer protection.

Meanwhile, they suggested in a study published in Malaria Journal, that correcting the breaking down of the body’s immunity by itself due to an attack of malaria and getting rid of the malaria parasite at the same time using appropriate treatments should be targetted as this is effective in preventing severe malaria in young children.

The discovery, a co-author, Michael Oluseyi Obadofin, from Jos University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, offers a scientific explanation for a better understanding of how malaria affects children. Speaking with Dr. Fatai Fehintola, a consultant pharmacologist with the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, he said that there were still gaps in terms of the knowledge on the exact way the malaria parasite produces some of its problems. According to him, when malaria parasite enters the body, it infects the red blood cells and the cells the body tries to destroy through the spleen or the liver. Those red blood cells that are not picked by the body simply burst and are eventually lost.

Nevertheless, he said, “There is also a hypothesis that suggested that even the normal red blood cell production does not function optimally the way it should when there is malaria, which means that the parasite may not just lead to destruction of red blood cells, it could also prevent even generation of new red blood cells.” Even though the exact means through which this happens is still unknown, but the suggestions include that some endogenous products within the body tend to affect production of red blood cells. The expert said malaria was an infection within the cells. ”If a particular agent is supposed to stay within the cell while it is residing within the cell, there must be some reactions that will be coming from the infected cells. It is like the infected cells now taking a new identity and now starting to behave in a manner that suggests it is different from those not infected,” he declared.

According to Dr. Fehintola, the process of the body destroying those cells that seem, as it were, to have taken a new identity explains why malaria could be described as one of the health problems that lower the immunity level of the affected individual. “If there is something happening to a particular cell, be it that of parts of the body like the kidneys and lungs, the body’s immune surveillance would simply identify it that this is not part of us and they will tend to destroy such cells. “That is part of what they are talking about when it comes to malaria. It is not just the issue of red blood cells that has been infected and so bursting but that even when the red blood cells are already infected, before they even burst, the body system sees them as not part of it and so tends to destroy them.

This is the basis of auto-immunity.” According to him, “We are aware of the immune basis of malaria susceptibility, but the exact way it happens is still unknown. “We have always known that children are more susceptible to malaria than adults and that this has to do with immunity. That is why we call adult semi-immune because even when an adult has malaria, it is unlikely that it will be as severe as it is in children. Also, the frequency of attacks is expected to be higher in children. “The explanation has always been that the immunity of one is better developed than that of the other and so channeling energy to getting more knowledge on malaria will go a long way in ensuring that malaria does not kill since new tools to prevent its severe forms that kill children will be available for use.”