Plasmodium malariae blood-stage dynamics

We examine the dynamics of parasitemia, fever, and gametocytemia reflected in the preintervention charts of 180 malaria-naive U.S. neurosyphilis patients infected with the USPHS strain of Plasmodium malariae, for malariatherapy, focusing on the 84 charts for which more than 35 days of patency preceded intervention and daily records encompassed 92% or more of the duration of each infection. Inoculum size did not influence any outcome variable. Fevers (days with temperatures greater than or equal to 101 F) followed patterns that fit recognized brood structures more often than did our approximations of merogony cycles (via local peaks in parasitemia), but neither closely fit textbook quartan patterns. There were no discernable patterns in gametocytemia. Successful transmission to mosquitoes increased following subcurative drug treatment but did not depend on detectable gametocytemia.