The intriguing Malaria parasite Plasmodium knowlesi: Monkey, man, 'spy' & double identity

• Main Author: Fong , Mun Yik
• Format: Book
• Published: University of Malaya 2018
• Subjects: R Medicine (General)
• Online Access: http://commonrepo.um.edu.my/12814/1/Inaugural%20Lecture%20Professor%20Dr%20Fong%20Mun%20Yik.pdf; http://commonrepo.um.edu.my/12814/
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

Plasmodium knowlsi is a malaria parasite of longtail and pigtail monkeys in Southeast Asia. Although discovered in the early 1930s, the first natural human infection with this parasite was only reported in 1965. The patient was a US Army surveyor who had worked alone for weeks in the jungles of Pahang. The true nature of his work was unclear, but a malaria scientist once wrote: The 7 960s was a period of heightened cold war tensions in the region, and rumours of espionage and clandestine operations were popular explanations for the surveyor's solo 'sojourn' in the Pahang jungle. In 2004, a large number of human knowlesi malaria was reported in Kapit, Sarawak. Since then, human knowlesi malaria has been documented in all countries in Southeast Asia. The parasite is now the major cause of human malaria in Malaysia. My series of studies on P. knowlesi culminated in the discovery of two genetically distinct types of the parasite, one mapping to Peninsular Malaysia and the other to Malaysian Borneo. Interestingly, severe human knowlesi malaria is frequently encountered in Malaysian Borneo, but hardly in Peninsular Malaysia. My next quest is to seek genetic evidence that the Malaysian Borneo P. knowlesi has evolved into a virulent form of this intriguing parasit.