Prenatal exposure to malaria may determine disease susceptibility early in life

Prenatal exposure to malaria considerably alters the newborn's innate immune response (i.e. its first line of defence), particularly when the placenta has been infected, according to a study led by ISGlobal, the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN) and the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (ITM). The results, published in BMC Medicine, could help explain why some babies are more susceptible to malaria than others during their first year of life.