Age-structured gametocyte allocation links immunity to epidemiology in malaria parasites

Malaria Journal

Table 1 Age-specific gametocyte densities with measures of transmission success in rural Cameroon [11] and published data sets [9,10].

		Gametocyte density
Study Site	age group	N	Geometric mean/μ l (± CI_95%)	Normalized _95%Confidence Intervals	Standardized Morisita Index	Variance/mean	Mean proportion mosquitoes infected ± s.e. (n)	Proportional contribution to human infectious reservoir
Cameroon	0–5	40	3.56 (0.8–6.32)	1.04	0.521	12.4	0.22 ± 0.05 (17)	0.32
	6–9	36	3.54 (0.88–6.2)	1.00	0.518	10.0	0.25 ± 0.05 (14)	0.43
	10–15	28	2.84 (0.04–5.64)	1.05	0.531	11.6	0.13 ± 0.06 (7)	0.11
	15+	33	3.71 (0.64–6.88)	1.20	0.528	13.6	0.09 ± 0.04 (12)	0.10
Kenya	1–4	33	29.3 (27.1–31.7)	1.00			0.16 (20)	0.38
	5–9	36	30.7 (27.8–33.8)	1.33			0.14 (20)	0.34
	10–14	17	29 (26.0–32.9)	1.50			0.07 (18)	0.09
			Gametocytes/red blood cells (×10^-2) ± SD
Sri Lanka	0–5	47	2.2 ± 3	1.85			0.14	0.11
P. vivax	6–15	122	1.3 ± 2	1.00			0.32	0.27
	16–25	75	1.9 ± 2	1.42			0.28	0.32
	26–50	82	1.4 ± 2	1.11			0.23	0.28
P. falciparum	0–5	26	0.07 ± 0.3	1.17			0.08	0.01
	6–20	130	0.09 ± 0.4	1.00			0.49	0.68
	21–50	187	0.13 ± 0.5	1.27			0.39	0.30
	50+	27	0.16 ± 0.5	2.20			0.04	0.01

Differences in the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals are normalized within each study by dividing by the lowest value. The proportional contribution to the infectious reservoir is the proportion of an age group that are infectious to mosquitoes multiplied by the proportion of mosquitoes that become infected. In bold, values for the least dispersed gametocyte densities and the highest mosquito infection rates; in italics the highest gametocyte densities. N is the number of individuals with gametocyte parasites and n is the number of individuals infecting mosquitoes.

ISSN: 1475-2875