A Gift Indeed!
Gorillas gave us malaria
A diagram of the life cycle of the parasite, which multiplies in the liver
The parasite that causes malaria, a scourge of the warmer parts of the world, evolved from a gorilla parasite thousands of years ago, a new study concludes. Scientists envision that the finding might open the way for further insights into malaria, perhaps through research into whether certain factors might make gorillas more or less vulnerable to malaria-like diseases. Also, "we can check and see whether transmission to humans takes place in areas where people live near" gorillas, said Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama, one of the investigators. The findings are published in the Sept. 23 issue of the research journal Nature. Caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, malaria kills an estimated one million people yearly out of more than 300 million new cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The illness is marked by repeated attacks of chills and fever. Most affected are people in the tropics and subtropics, as well as travelers to those regions. Health officials have been working to fight malaria by handing out bed nets to help protect people from mosquito bites at night. Scientists are also working on a vaccine. The origin of the main human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, has been much debated, with various theories proposing a chimpanzee, bonobo or ancient human origin. Hahn and colleagues analyzed almost 3,000 fecal samples from wild-living African apes in a search for relatives of P. falciparum, and concluded that the closest relatives were wild-living western gorillas. The actual effects of these parasites on apes are still unknown, Hahn said. Transmission between gorillas and people "probably happened anywhere between 5,000 and 300,000 years ago," she added.
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