Interactions between worms and malaria: good worms or bad worms ?

Mathieu Nacher (1, 2, 3)

1 CIC - Antilles Guyane - Centre d'investigation clinique Antilles-Guyane
2 Epidémiologie des parasitoses et mycoses tropicales
3 Department of Tropical Medicine

ABSTRACT: In the past decade, there has been an increasing number of studies on co-infections between worms and malaria. However, this increased interest has yielded results that have been at times conflicting and made it difficult to clearly grasp the outcome of this interaction. Despite the heterogeneity of study designs, reviewing the growing body of research may be synthesized into some broad trends: Ascaris emerges mostly as protective for malaria and its severe manifestations, whereas hookworm seems to increase malaria incidence. As efforts are made to de-worm populations in malaria endemic areas, there is still no clear picture of the impact these programmes have in terms of quantitative and qualitative changes in malaria.

Domaines: Maladies infectieuses

Mathieu Nacher. Interactions between worms and malaria: good worms or bad worms ?. Malaria Journal, 2011, 10 (1), pp.259. ⟨10.1186/1475-2875-10-259⟩. ⟨inserm-00632065⟩