What is the connection between sickle cell anaemia and malaria?
Malaria is caused by a protozoan of the genus plasmodium. There are 4 species which cause the different variants of the disease namely, Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium malariae. The vector of malaria is the anopheles mosquito. It has been observed that people with sickle cell anemia seem to be protected from developing the disease. It is yet to be well establsihed the reason for this protection conferred by the sickling of the RBCs to persons who have this recessive trait.
