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Malaria remains a major scourge in developing countries despite development of potent antimalarial drugs such as artemisinin derivatives. Host defense mainly involves production of antibodies directed against malarial parasites and sequestration of infected blood cells by the spleen. Early during the course of infection, platelet counts fall, but reasons for this decline are unclear. Now, Australian investigators have developed a thrombocytopenic mouse model to assess malaria-infected human blood cells and to help establish the role of platelets in parasite killing.
Platelet-deficient mice exhibited higher mortality rates than did control animals when both groups were infected with malarial parasites (P<0.0001). Moreover, males were more sus…