Infants Younger Than 24 Months With Severe Malaria Have a Serologic Profile of Active Infection With Epstein-Barr Virus
Wayne T Cheng, Balotin Fogang, Aarti Jain, D Huw Davies, Philip L Felgner, Carole Eboumbou, Paul N Koki, Samuel H Speck, Chester J Joyner, Lawrence S Ayong, Tracey J Lamb · 2026
Read Infants Younger Than 24 Months With Severe Malaria Have a Serologic Profile of Active Infection With Epstein-Barr Virus by Wayne T Cheng, Balotin Fogang, Aarti Jain, D Huw Davies, Philip L Felgner, Carole Eboumbou, Paul N Koki, Samuel H Speck, Chester J Joyner, Lawrence S Ayong, Tracey J Lamb (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13600389.txt.
Description
Eleven researchers studied whether a common virus infection raises the risk of severe malaria in babies, in a 2026 paper. Epstein-Barr virus infects most children in malaria regions by age two, quietly and without symptoms. For about four weeks after infection, the immune system answers other threats more weakly.
The team tested 195 infants aged six to twenty-four months in Cameroon. About one in four showed blood signs of active virus infection. Severe malaria cases clustered most in that active group. Those children also mounted broader antibody responses against the malaria parasite in lab tests, yet carried similar parasite levels in the blood. The authors read active virus infection as a risk factor for severe malaria at this age. Blocking or delaying the virus in toddlers might cut severe malaria where both diseases are common.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Wayne T Cheng, Balotin Fogang, Aarti Jain, D Huw Davies, Philip L Felgner, Carole Eboumbou, Paul N Koki, Samuel H Speck, Chester J Joyner, Lawrence S Ayong, Tracey J Lamb |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 26 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |