Morphological and Transcriptional Changes in Human Bone Marrow During Natural Plasmodium vivax Malaria Infections.

Background: The presence of Plasmodium vivax malaria parasites in the human bone marrow (BM) is still controversial. However, recent data from a clinical case and experimental infections in splenectomized nonhuman primates unequivocally demonstrated the presence of parasites in this tissue.

Methods: In the current study, we analyzed BM aspirates of 7 patients during the acute attack and 42 days after drug treatment.