Establishing a blood-stage controlled human malaria infection model with Plasmodium falciparum in healthy semi-immune Tanzanian adults

Blood-stage controlled human malaria infection in semi-immune Tanzanian adults using Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 is safe and feasible, with 9 of 11 developing qPCR-detectable parasitaemia.

• Why it matters: Proof-of-concept testing for blood-stage vaccines and antimalarial drugs needs a human model that bypasses pre-erythrocytic stages and can be run in endemic settings.
• What they did: Twelve healthy semi-immune male adults in Bagamoyo were split into low (n=6) and high (n=6) anti-schizont IgG pre-exposure groups, then challenged with ~1000 infected erythrocytes and monitored for 28 days with qPCR sampling.
• The result: Higher anti-schizont baseline serology was linked to later median time to parasitaemia detection and to pre-defined treatment criteria, and two qPCR-negative participants were both in the high pre-exposure group.

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