Ebola survivor James Harris , 29 , stands for a portrait before a shift as a nurse ’s supporter at the Doctors Without Borders ( MSF ) , Ebola treatment shopping center on October 12 , 2014 in Paynesville , Liberia . persona credit : John Moore / Getty Images
Arecent studyrevealed a surprising finding : Of those taint in the West African Ebola epidemic in 2014 , patient role who had an active malaria sponger contagion were actually more likely to survive the Ebola virus , and by a substantial degree . While just over one-half ( 52 percent ) of Ebola patient role not infect with malaria survive , those co - septic with malaria had a survival of the fittest pace of 72 to 83 per centum , depending on their ages and the amount of Ebola virus in their blood .
What give ? Should n’t having a second , potentially pernicious transmission make youmorelikely to die of Ebola ?
possibly not . Though research worker are n’t yet certain of the mechanism by which malaria co - contagion in Ebola patient might be protective , they have some ideas . The prevailing thought is that malaria is somehow modifying the immune reply to Ebola , making it less deadly than in hoi polloi who are n’t co - infected with the malaria parasite .
The authors of the study , print in the journalClinical infective Diseases , note that malaria can make other infections less deadly . For example , in a mathematical group of children from Tanzania , those who had respiratory infections along with malaria were less likely to have those infectionsdevelop into pneumoniathan kids who had respiratory infections without it .
It may be that malaria is able to tone down a phenomenon visit the “ cytokine storm”—the body ’s own response to an Ebola infection that unknowingly kill the host while attempting to eliminate the pathogen . If malaria can turn this emcee reply down , patients may have a better fortune of exist the virus ’s assault .
This would n’t be the first time that malaria infection has been hailed as a paladin , rather than an enemy . In 1927 , the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinewas awarded to Julius Wagner - Jauregg“for his discovery of the therapeutic note value of malaria inoculation in the intervention of dementia paralytica . ” Wagner - Juaregg and others had observed that sometimes syphilis seemed to be cure following “ febrile infectious diseases ” as far back as 1887 . He also mention in his Nobel speech that he had “ single out as a particular advantage of malaria that there is the possibility of interrupting the disease at will by the use of quinine , but I did not then anticipate to what stage these expectation from induced malaria would be carry out . ” While there was no “ cure ” for lues at the prison term , and no cure for the other infection he had view ( erysipelas , unremarkably triggered by the same bacteria that make streptococcus throat and scarlet fever ) , malaria could be treat with quinine , a chemical compound that we still utilize today .
Before Wagner - Juaregg ’s “ malariotherapy , ” treatments for syphilis included Hg , Salvarsan ( an arsenic - containing drug ) , and bismuth — all of which had serious side effect , including death . Wagner - Juaregg ’s method acting seemed to have no more risk than the formal treatments of the epoch , and in 1917 , he injected nine individual lose from advanced syphilis with malaria parasites . He reported three of them to be cured , and three more to have “ extensive remitment . ” Soon , malariotherapy broadcast acrossthe U.S. and into Europe , with tens of M of syphilis patients treat with the malaria sponger .
However , the degree to which malariotherapy worked is still a subject of controversy . And it was not without its own serious side effects , with death resulting inup to 15 percent of those process . With the unveiling of penicillin as a treatment for syphilis in the forties , malariotherapy was substitute , but the decades of use of malaria as a treatment significantly advanced our knowledge of the malaria parasite .
Today , scientists may be able to employ this natural experiment to create drug that could mime malaria ’s effect without actively infecting individuals . ( Malaria is a annihilative disease , causinghundreds of thousands of deathsevery year , in the main in Africa . ) brute model could potentially be used to tease apart the server ’s reception to Ebola contagion and learn how malaria spay the common reception to the Ebola computer virus to make it less mortal . These revision could be used to create new drugs or other interventions to treat Ebola contagion .
More significantly , further study of the phenomenon of malaria co - contagion with other pathogens could lead to change in patient tending . The current stock operating procedure is to treat malaria infection when it is found in an Ebola case . But might it actually improve a patient ’s consequence to retard treatment for malaria ? The authors of the current cogitation note that amouse modeling of malaria - Ebola co - infectionfound that discourse for malaria lead to death from Ebola infection in all animals . And yet during the 2014 Ebola outbreak , oeuvre carried out at one Ebola treatment nub in Liberia showed thatEbola fatality rates decreasedwith effective malaria discourse . Complicating the matter , the malarial drug used in that case ( artesunate - amodiaquine , or ASAQ ) may have been creditworthy for the anti - Ebola natural action .
While it ’s unlikely that a malaria treatment for Ebola would be as pop ( or legal or honorable ) as the “ malariotherapy ” of the early 1900s , it ’s sure as shooting worth closely examining the clues this Colorado - contagion has provided scientists about the nature of both Ebola and malaria infections — and how we could harness them to fight against one of nature ’s most frightening disease .
