MALARIA uses a gender-bending trick to ensure that enough parasites of each sex survive to infect new hosts and reproduce. This discovery may suggest new ways to control the disease by altering the balance of the sexes.
Initially, malaria parasites reproduce asexually in an animal’s bloodstream, destroying red blood cells and causing anaemia. The body produces more red blood cells to compensate, and also mounts an increasingly effective immune response.
Soon, however, individual asexual parasites change to a sexual form, known as a gametocyte. Each asexual parasite is capable of becoming either a male or a female gametocyte. Once ingested…
