Medical experts have warned that malaria, with all its debilitating effects on the patient, can also make the body work contrary to itself, as well as destroy the red blood cells that help to supply all parts of the body with oxygen which makes us living beings.

MALARIA infection might cause children's immune systems to attack their own DNA, resulting in more severe health problems than in adults, a new discovery, by a team of scientists from Nigeria and the US has said.

The scientists tested blood samples of 21 Nigerian children from the Barkin Ladi Village Clinic, under the age of six, who were infected with plasmodium falciparum malaria and tested for the presence of different immune components such as cytokines signalling chemicals released by the immune system and antibodies.

They speculated that DNA causes the immune system to attack its own cells known as auto-immunity which, in children, leads to a worse state of sickness. Auto-immune-like response is said to have a different effect in adults, particularly those repeatedly exposed to malaria. Adults, with their more developed immune systems, can often be repeatedly exposed to malaria and benefit from a better immune system response and stronger protection against the parasite.

According to Virginia Baker, a US-based researcher at Chipola College and a co-author of the study, with this new light shed on how children respond to falciparum malaria, it is clear that one of the reasons malaria is more of a problem in children is because children “are making antibodies that are not protective.”

However, the researchers believe that their new findings may also show why some vaccines, which use DNA as an agent to increase immunity, fail to work. They said it might mean that such vaccines may, in fact, need an immuno-suppressant in order to confer protection.

Meanwhile, they suggested in a study published in a Malaria Journal that correcting the breaking down of the body's immunity by itself due to an attack of malaria and getting rid of the malaria parasite at the same time using appropriate treatments should be targeted as this is effective in preventing severe malaria in young children.

Michael Oluseyi Obadofin, from Jos University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, offers a scientific explanation for a better understanding of how malaria affects children. Speaking with Dr. Fatai Fehintola, a Consultant Pharmacologist with the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, he said there were still gaps in terms of the knowledge on the exact way the malaria parasite produces some of its problems. Nevertheless, he said,

“There is also a hypothesis that suggested that even the normal red blood cell production does not function optimally the way it should when there is malaria, which means that the parasite may not just lead to destruction of red blood cells, it could also prevent even generation of new red blood cells.”

Even though the exact means through which this happens is still unknown, the suggestions include that some endogenous products within the body tend to affect production of red blood cells. “We are aware of the immune basis of malaria susceptibility, but the exact way it happens is still unknown.”

“We have always known that children are more susceptible to malaria than adults and that this has to do with immunity. That is why we call adult semi-immune because even when an adult has malaria, it is unlikely that it will be as severe as it is in children. Also, the frequency of attacks is expected to be higher in children,” says Dr. Fehintola.

The explanation has always been that the immunity of one is better developed than that of the other and so channelling energy to getting more knowledge on malaria and the immune system will go a long way in ensuring that malaria does not kill.