The gulf between me and the allopathic medical establishment (and its belief in germ theory) was very clear at the poster session of Kenya Medical Research Institutes Annual Scientific and Health Conference. Maurine Mwalo presented the paper by Obilo et al, ‘Updating Malaria Risk-Map of Kenya Through Diagnosis of Asymptomatic Malaria-Infected Individuals’. Just 3.6% of 13,719 tested were positive for plasmodia. And of these 490, 99.5% had no symptoms. They were treated with the ACT Artemether-Lumefantrine anyway.
I asked how it could be said that these 99.5% asymptomatic positive individuals had malaria if they were not ill. The presenter and the rest of the audience all said in unison ‘They have the parasite!’. It reminded me of the recent COVID war and the obsession with positive test results whether patients had symptoms of illness or not.
And this week Malaria World features a review paper ‘The Burden of Asymptomatic Malaria Infection in Children in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Exploring Barriers to Elimination and Prevention’ by Asmelash et al. The results of 24 studies were combined and found 25% prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in children 6 months to 15 years. The two notable findings were that children who tested positive were 3.53 times more likely to be anaemic, and families who never or sometimes used ITN (insecticide treated nets) were 3.89 times more likely to have asymptomatic malaria compared to families who usually utilized ITN. The study also revealed that the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria was not significantly associated with stunted children.
The authors state that anaemia is a symptom of malaria and the ITN result is proof of the effectiveness of nets for excluding mosquitos and preventing malaria transmission.
This paper is a good example of the confirmation bias present in every study of malaria since the time of Ross and Grassi. There are other possible explanations for the results if one does not try to fit them to the mosquito-plasmodium transmission theory.
I suspect that malaria is an illness caused by malnutrition. If a person becomes quite ill, plasmodia present in the blood will multiply to consume the dead tissue, especially blood cells of the ill individual. If well (asymptomatic) these plasmodia will remain dormant and undetectable in the healthiest people. But people who may be a little run down might have more, a detectable number. The coincidence with anaemia is not surprising. If red blood cells are breaking down (anaemia) plasmodia will start to multiply.
And the ITN result may be a marker of other factors, in particular, the economic status of the family. I expect better off families are more likely to have and use ITNs. They are also more likely to be able to afford nutritious food and clean water.
And the bottom line is that people without symptoms and not actually ill. How can an asymptomatic person be said to have malaria?