New research by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), shows that malaria is tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought. An international team led by researchers from Imperial College London, found that the potentially deadly tropical evolved with anatomically modern humans and moved with our ancestors migrated from Africa around 60 to 80.000 years.The international team has worked the largest collection ever assembled of malaria parasites. Calling them by DNA sequencing, were able to track the progress of malaria throughout the tropics and to calculate the age of the parasite. Scientists have discovered a clear correlation of genetic diversity decreases with the distance in sub-Saharan Africa. This qualification reflects the same data in humans suggesting strong evidence of co-evolution and migration.
Dr François Balloux Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Analysis and modeling blast at Imperial College London has been principal investigator on the project. He said: “The most recent work to understand how malaria spread throughout the tropics has been working on the assumption that the disease was established with the development of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, our research shows that the parasite has evolved and Malaria circulated together with humans and it is. at least as old as the case of human migration from Africa from 60 to 80.000 years. ”
The results and techniques for the study may be important to inform the current control strategies to reduce the prevalence of malaria. There are approximately 230 million cases annually, causing between 1 and 3 million deaths and approximately 1.4 billion people are at risk of infection.
Dr Balloux said: “The genetic sequence of the malaria parasite shows a pattern of geographic similarities with the human studies This highlights a common origin, age and geographical distribution of courses in the world This understanding is important because despite the prevalence and .. the deadly impact of malaria research little has been done previously to understand the genetic variation of the parasite. Genetic diversity of malaria parasites is critical to their threat, because it helps to overcome the immune system and develop resistance to drugs, making this vital research informing new and more efficient control strategies. “