Julyana Cerqueira Buery |Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES)
Malaria transmission in the Brazilian extra-Amazonian region, although interrupted in the 1960s, still persists in some areas with dense Atlantic Forest, where case reports are characterized by obscure transmission cycles and discrete clinical presentations. Bromeliad malaria, as it is called, is particularly common in the state of Espirito Santo and has received the name because of the breeding site of Anopheles mosquitoes, inside of Bromeliaceae plants. Plasmodium vivax is the parasite commonly recognized as the etiological agent of human infections. The characteristic spatial and temporal distance between reported cases, the presence of some autochthonous cases in humans, asymptomatic infections and low parasitemia under the microscope make it questionable whether there is a traditional transmission chain. Since this cycle does not correspond to the traditional malaria cycle, it is possible that a zoonosis is occurring, with infected apes participating as parasite reservoirs. In the last decade, sequencing of the mitochondrial genome of P. vivax/simium from humans, Allouata simians and mosquitoes in the same region, has helped elucidating the transmission chain. Time for the most recent common ancestor, haplotypic and nucleotide diversity information would provide answers on both the origin of parasites and the direction of parasite transfer between hosts in this region.
Host: Pedro Cravo