1. WHAT IS MALARIA?

Malaria is the most widely-spread infectious tropical disease worldwide, known to people
from the dawn of mankind. It is caused by a parasite of the species Plasmodium. People get
infected with the disease when bitten by female Anopheles mosquitoes, vectors of the
parasite. There are four common human malaria types, of which the Plasmodium falciparum
type is the most serious and deadly. It has recently been found that another species,
Plasmodium knowlesi, a monkey type of malaria which can also be life-threatening to the
people infected.
According to WHO statistics malaria is a serious problem in more than 100 countries of the
world, half of which are in Africa, with a total population of about 2,400 million people
(about 40% of the total world population). Every year between 300 000 and 500 000 clinical
cases are registered, and about 2 million deaths per year are due to malaria. Twenty-five
percent of childhood deaths occur as a result of the effects of this disease. It is estimated that
every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria.

2. WHAT CAUSES THE ILLNESS?

Malaria is transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected person and sucks blood from him,
thus ingesting red blood cells which contain the sexual forms of the parasite called
gametocytes . They continue their sexual cycle to form sporozoites which eventually reach the
salivary glands of the insect. When the infested mosquito bites again as it needs a blood meal
to nurture its eggs, the parasite can be passed on to another human. The injected parasites
(sporozoites) reach the liver through the blood stream, where within 5 -16 days they grow and
multiply and form numerous merozoites in each liver cell. When eventually the merozoites
leave the liver cell they start invading the red blood cells where they replicate asexually and
produce thousands of inoculated red blood cells and in this way spread the infection
Occasionally, malaria can be transmitted through contact with infected blood, for example in
cases of blood transfusion, transplantation of organs and transmission from mother to the
growing fetus.
Malaria transmission is influenced greatly by geographic, climatic and immunity factors. It is
more intensely transmitted in areas where lifespan of mosquitoes is comparatively longer
(allowing enough time the parasite to develop within the mosquito) and they tend to bite by
far more often than other animals. In addition, mosquitoes thrive in areas where there are lots
of shallow freshwater collections so this is why over 85% of deaths from malaria occur in
Africa. Children ( they haven’t formed immunity yet) and pregnant women ( their immunity
is reduced during pregnancy)are at high risk of getting infected.

3. PRIOR TO THE CURRENT STUDY, BY WHAT ROUTE WAS THE

PATHOGEN BELIEVED TO INFECT HUMANS?

For the last fifty years scientists have been searching where actually the malaria parasite came
from. It was believed that Plasmodium falciparum had a closer relation to the chicken parasite
Plasmodium gallinaceum, than to any of the other human parasite species. Another possibility
considered suggested that that P. falciparum developed from an avian parasite . It was
believed until recently that Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium reichenowi, the malaria
parasite carried by chimpanzees, were closely related but that they existed separately in
human and chimpanzee ancestors The findings of the research led by Stephen M. Rich, a
professor of entomology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in collaboration with
Francisco Ayala in the late 1990s first suggested that all Plasmodium falciparum parasites are
of common origin and they strayed when human and ape lines separated. The research was
carried out in cooperation with Nathan Wolf and other scientists who collected samples from
wild and captive wild-born chimpanzees brought to sanctuaries in Cameroon as well as tissue
and blood samples from dead animals in the Ivory Coast, Africa .The study of the newly
discovered parasites proved that malaria is a zoonotic disease which jumped from
chimpanzees to humans through a mosquito bite about 10 000 years ago in a way very similar
to how other infectious diseases such as HIV, SARS and others originated showed not only
that there are a greater number of closely related parasites to human than Plasmodium
falciparum thought but it also gave rise to expectation that these could enable scientist to
discover effective drugs and vaccines to fight the deadly disease.

4. WHAT WERE THE MAIN WEAKNESSES IN THE PREVIOUS

RESEARCH ON THE TOPIC?

The main weakness of the research was that it used a limited number of specimens for the
purpose of the study. Samples were taken from animals that were captured not far from urban
areas or from animals which had died of various diseases different from malaria. The method
that was used also imposed certain limitations on the study as it was carried out in mixed
species environment. The prevalence of the target gene can also lead to false positive or
negative results as the PCR method tends to amplify genes that appear in higher concentration

5. WHAT WERE THE KEY DIFFERENCES IN THE CURRENT STUDY?

The main difference of the current research compared to the previous one is the by far greater
number of the specimen used (about 3000 ) as well as the fact that these were faecal samples
collected from sites in a non-aggressive manner from chimpanzees, bonobos and eastern and
western gorillas throughout central parts of Africa. All animals that samples were taken from
are living in the wild, which reduces to a minimum any artifact sequence. Another key
difference is the technique the researchers used to examine different African ape populations
for Plasmodium parasites. In order to avoid the limitations imposed when mixed genetically
different templates are studied and to get an accurate representation of plasmodium types
researchers used single-genome method along with the conventional PCR method.

6. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CONCLUSIONS TO THE NEW RESEARCH?

On the grounds of the analyzed data the researchers have found that western gorillas and
chimpanzees undoubtedly carry considerable quantities of nine types of Plasmodium
parasites but bonobos and eastern gorillas are not, as the research failed to identify
Plasmodium infection in any of the multiple field sites. This is to suggest that malaria is not
common among certain ape populations probably due to various regional and climatic factors.
Re-examination of samples containing Plasmodium parasites by means of SGA method led to
the conclusion that all chimpanzee Plasmodium can be excluded from the suspect list of
human Plasmodium ancestors of human Plasmodium falciparum. Findings indicate that
human malaria parasite originated from western gorillas. Additional research needs to be done
on when the exactly the cross-species gorilla –to-human transmission occurred.
7. COMMENTS ON THE COVERAGE OF THE RESEARCH IN THE
PRESS

As the research on malaria origins is of vital importance to fighting the deadly disease
worldwide, it was duly covered in the press the very day after the study was published. All
three articles, in Daily Mail, The Independent and the BBC are aimed at familiarizing their
readerships with the results and the findings of the research. The article in the Daily Mail
contains a number of inaccurately cited figures and although the reporter has tried to include
as much information as possible, there is certain ambiguity which team of researchers
conducted which survey. The article in The Independent is better structured and easy to
follow as it is clearer and more accurate. The article in the BBC site is comparatively accurate
as it comes to citing figures but the structure o the article and the wording make it difficult to
follow the logical connection between two ideas. On the whole, the common reader would
find the article in the Independent most informative as it is accurate and well-structured.

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