Treatment of east african P. falciparum malaria with west african human γ-globulin

Abstract

1) Gamma globulin from adult West Africans which is known to have a consistent anti-malarial action in West African children was administered to East African subjects with severe P. falciparum infections. Nine children aged 6–20 months with an initial parasitaemia of 10,900–375,000 per c.m., each received 1.4 to 2.2 grammes γ-globulin. 2) In all cases γ-globulin therapy was followed by an abrupt reduction in parasite density and recovery from clinical illness similar to that observed in treated West African children. By the fourth day the average parasite count was less than 1 per cent. of the mean initial count; in five out of nine cases, parasite levels remained within the range of the West African children during the remaining 5 days of observation. These results indicate that West African γ-globulin contains antibody active against East African malaria, so that P. falciparum parasites of East and West Africa must be antigenically similar. 3) Three East African children showed an undoubted recrudescence of parasitaemia after the fourth day, so that the occurrence of a serologically distinct strain of P. falciparum resistant to West African immune γ-globulin cannot at present be excluded.