Nature Communications (Feb 2021)

Genotyping cognate Plasmodium falciparum in humans and mosquitoes to estimate onward transmission of asymptomatic infections

  • Kelsey M. Sumner,
  • Elizabeth Freedman,
  • Lucy Abel,
  • Andrew Obala,
  • Brian W. Pence,
  • Amy Wesolowski,
  • Steven R. Meshnick,
  • Wendy Prudhomme-O’Meara,
  • Steve M. Taylor

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21269-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Asymptomatic malaria infections contribute to transmission. Here, Sumner et al. infer participant-to-mosquito transmission by sampling naturally-fed mosquitoes from households in Western Kenya and find that asymptomatic infections more than double the odds of transmission to a mosquito compared to symptomatic infections.