A Genotyping Study in Benin Comparing the Carriage of Plasmodium falciparum Infections Before Pregnancy and in Early Pregnancy: Story of a Persistent Infection.

Background: Malaria infections in the first trimester of pregnancy are frequent and deleterious for both mother and child health. To investigate if these early infections are newly acquired or already present in the host, we assessed whether parasites detected before pregnancy and those detected in early pregnancy are the same infection.

Methods: We used data from the preconceptional "RECIPAL" study (Benin, 2014-2017).