Newborn infants in endemic areas are markedly resistant to Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Consequently, severe disease is rare during the first few months of life, and infections tend to be low density and relatively asymptomatic during this period. Although this is generally ascribed to passively transferred immunity, attempts to identify the targets and mechanisms of this protection have been unsuccessful. The implications of the hypothesis that the progression from resistance through susceptibility and back to resistance during infancy and early childhood reflects the gradual acquisition of IgG to variant surface antigens (VSAs), while protection from maternal VSA-specific IgG steadily fades, are discussed here.

中文翻译：

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婴儿的疟疾免疫力：一般现象的特例？

流行地区的新生儿对恶性疟原虫疟疾有明显的抵抗力。因此，严重的疾病在生命的最初几个月中很少见，并且在此期间感染倾向于低密度且相对没有症状。尽管通常将其归因于被动转移的免疫，但尝试确定这种保护的目标和机制仍未成功。在此讨论了假说的涵义，即从敏感性通过耐药性发展到婴儿期和幼儿期的耐药性发展反映了IgG逐渐获取变异表面抗原（VSA），而对母体VSA特异性IgG的保护却逐渐消失。