Prevalence of antibody to Plasmodium falciparum antigens among feral Saimiri monkeys in the Amazon basin region of Peru

Detection of etiological agents of malaria in howler monkeys from Atlantic Forests, rescued in regions of São Paulo city, Brazil

“…In the Peruvian Amazon Forest, antibodies against merozoite surface protein 1 of P. falciparum , SPf66 and CSP were detected in sera of squirrel monkeys ( Saimiri sciureus macrodon ). The fact that these monkeys did not show symptoms raised the hypothesis that they are carriers of asymptomatic malaria [30].…”

“…These parasites naturally infect monkeys from the families Cebidae and Atelidae. P. simium and P. brasilianum are similar to human P. vivax and P. malariae , respectively, and these similarities occur at the morphological, genetic, and immunological level [3, 11–14, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 30, 34].…”

“…Based on this, several authors hypothesized that monkeys may act as a reservoir for human malaria or vice versa [11, 20, 21, 27, 30, 32–34, 50]. Sometimes, ecological conditions allow the coexistence of humans and monkeys in the same habitat as observed in the transmission of P. knowlesi to the human population in Southeast Asia [15, 16, 29, 35, 36, 38, 46, 51, 54].…”

Widespread occurrence of antibodies against circumsporozoite protein and against blood forms of Plasmodium vivax, P. falciparum and P. malariae in Brazilian wild monkeys

“…Antibodies against P. falciparum merozoite surface protein (MSP1), SPf66 and CSP were detected in sera of squirrel monkeys ( Saimiri sciureus macrodon ) from the Amazon Forest in Peru. The hypothesis of asymptomatic malaria was raised in view of the fact that monkeys did not present malaria symptoms [20].…”

“…Only three studies based on malaria serology in wild New World monkeys have been published. Consequently, very little is known about wild monkey malaria parasites [2, 20, 30].…”