Malaria Control & Elimination

A growing threat to public health are raboviruses and malaria, which affect not only the general population but also immune compromised individuals and pregnant women. Due to the co-circulation and transmission of ZIKV, malaria and FLAVI fever, individuals in vulnerable groups are more likely to experience severe complications. These mosquito-borne infections pose a diagnostic challenge for physicians in regions where they co-circulate because their clinical presentations overlap with those of other diseases in sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria. Maternal health and foetal outcomes can be devastatingly affected by vertical transmission, including an increased risk of foetal loss and premature birth. There is a lack of information regarding the prevalence of arboviruses, particularly ZIKV and other flaviviruses, in Nigeria despite the worldwide recognition of their burden.

In cerebral malaria patients, neurologic injuries are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. However, there is a dearth of a comprehensive approach to this problem, so we propose an in vitro system for cellular approaches to human cerebral malaria research. Our primary objective was to develop a cellular system for the purpose of determining the molecular changes in human brain vasculature cells that are analogous to the blood–brain barrier (BBB) in cerebral malaria (CM). We identified specific gene expression profiles in Plasmodium falciparum-activated human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMEC) through transcriptomic analysis. In addition, we propose potential brand-new genes connected to parasitic activation.