ASTMH 2014, Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara: “Evidence of the indirect benefit of reducing morbidity and mortality through malaria control in Kenya”

In collaboration with ASTMH, ImageAV & presenters, MESA brings you this webcast from the symposium ‘Is asymptomatic malaria truly asymptomatic?’

Title: Evidence of the indirect benefit of reducing morbidity and mortality through malaria control in Kenya

Abstract:

The aim of this symposium is to discuss the clinical effects of low density, sub–clinical malaria. With recent falls in malaria transmission, it has become noted that there has been a decline in morbidity and mortality in excess of that expected by severe malaria disease alone. In addition, the advent of highly sensitive diagnostics has created awareness of a large proportion of infections being low density and sub-clinical – some say – asymptomatic. But are these infections truly asymptomatic, are they always asymptomatic over time and does the consequence of long-term infection really have no adverse affect on the host? This symposium will review the evidence to support the argument that there is an excess of deaths that are averted when malaria declines above those that are related to the direct affects of malaria, and these extra deaths may be related to sub-clinical infections. The mechanism of how malaria infection disrupts host immunity to increase the chances of gram-negative sepsis will be discussed. The consequences of asymptomatic carriage on the associated risk of anemia and subsequent recurrence of malaria will be highlighted with data from household surveys and large scale hospital surveillance studies. Knowing that the risks of infection and anemia exist, what are the larger social consequences? This session will review the data on the effects of asymptomatic carriage and educational performance studied in a series of trials in schools.