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VOLUME 57 , ISSUE 1 ( January-March, 2023 ) > List of Articles

REVIEW ARTICLE

Immunopathology of Malaria in Pregnancy: Immune Cells Response to Infection

Prem Lata Manhas, Upninder Kaur, Jayshree Singh, Rakesh Sehgal, Pankaj Malhotra

Keywords : Immunopathogenesis, Malaria, Pregnancy.

Citation Information : Manhas PL, Kaur U, Singh J, Sehgal R, Malhotra P. Immunopathology of Malaria in Pregnancy: Immune Cells Response to Infection. J Postgrad Med Edu Res 2023; 57 (1):19-26.

DOI: 10.5005/jp-journals-10028-1608

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Published Online: 10-04-2023

Copyright Statement:  Copyright © 2023; The Author(s).


Abstract

Malaria during pregnancy is a leading public health problem. Apart from causing maternal illness or death, malaria during pregnancy is also responsible for the occurrence of frequent abortion, stillbirth, premature delivery, and low birth weight. Malaria during pregnancy has a central feature of placental accumulation of infected erythrocytes, which is how the parasite circumvents host immunity. In this review, we have briefly discussed the immunopathogenesis of malaria in nonpregnant women explaining the normal progression of the disease in nonpregnant women. Next, we have explained in the review how it is controlled, discussing the cellular and humoral immune response in malaria. Further, we have focused in detail on the immunopathogenesis of malaria in pregnancy, how it is different from malaria in nonpregnant women, and the risks special to malaria in pregnancy. Challenges of endemicity and cell-mediated immune response [natural killer (NK) cells, macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), T-cells, and B-cells] to malaria in pregnancy are briefed lastly.


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