Why then do Science teachers always talk about malaria and sickle cell anaemia?
A 3: Inadequate knowledge, or plain ignorance is the simple answer. I repeat: malaria affects sickle cell anaemia patients more seriously than it does others. A sickle cell anaemia child is one who has inherited sickle cell genes from both parents [S from father, and S from mother] producing the phenotype SS. A child inheriting a sickle cell gene [S] from just one parent, and a normal haemoglobin gene [A] from the other parent is called Sickle Cell Trait [AS phenotype]. This child does not have sickle cell anaemia, and reacts to malaria differently. Even those Science teachers who know this difference between sickle cell anaemia [2 haemoglobin S genes] and sickle cell trait [1 haemoglobin S gene] teach, wrongly, that the AS phenotype is immune to malaria. It certainly is not, but (and this is where the confusion arises) the sickle cell trait child before the age of 4 years, withstands better the lethal effects of malignant malaria (ie Plasmodium falciparum ) than either the sickle cell
