News Release

The impact of phenotypic and genotypic G6PD deficiency on risk of Plasmodium vivax infection

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Research published this week in PLoS Medicine by Toby Leslie and colleagues shows that the Mediterranean G6PD variant protects against P. vivax infection in a cohort of Afghan refugees. Although further studies are needed to determine whether other G6PD variants protect against P. vivax malaria, these findings suggest that P. vivax malaria might be responsible for the retention of the G6PD deficiency trait in some human populations.

These findings may have implications for the treatment of P. vivax malaria. Currently, in most places where P. vivax malaria is common, primaquine is not routinely prescribed because this drug can trigger hemolytic anemia in G6PD-deficient people. These new findings suggest that the risk of exposure to primaquine among people infected with P. vivax might be lower than previously assumed because G6PD deficiency is less common among P. vivax-infected patients than among the general population. But routine use of primaquine for P. vivax malaria will only become possible when a simple test for G6PD deficiency (currently unavailable) is developed.

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Funding:The study was funded in part by GlaxoSmithKline as an investigator-initiated study and was sponsored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. MR and CJMW were supported by the Gates Malaria Partnership, and TL is supported by the ACT Consortium. Neither the funder nor the sponsor played any role in design and conduct of the study, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, decision to publish, or in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

Competing Interests:Other than the partial funding by GlaxoSmithKline of this investigator-initiated study, CJMW has received funding for investigator -initiated research from Pfizer. None of the other authors have conflicts of interest to declare.

Citation: Leslie T, Briceno M, Mayan I, Mohammed N, Klinkenberg E, et al. (2010) The Impact of Phenotypic and Genotypic G6PD Deficiency on Risk of Plasmodium vivax Infection: A Case-Control Study amongst Afghan Refugees in Pakistan. PLoS Med 7(5): e1000283. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000283

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000283

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: www.plos.org/press/plme-07-05-leslie.pdf

CONTACT:

Toby Leslie
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Infectious and Tropical Disease, Disease Control and Vector Biology Unit
Keppel Street
London, WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
+442079588387
toby.leslie@lshtm.ac.uk


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