IngentaConnect Malaria among the Jarawas, a primitive and isolated tribe on the ...

Authors: Das, M.K.¹; Joshi, H.²; Verma, A.²; Singh, S.S.³; Adak, T.⁴

Source: Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, Volume 99, Number 6, September 2005 , pp. 545-552(8)

Abstract:

The Jarawas are a primitive Negrito tribe of the Andaman islands, India. The members of this tribe have been geographically and socially isolated from the other inhabitants of the islands. None had attended a hospital or health unit until 1997, when a Jarawa boy with a fractured leg was taken to a hospital in Port Blair, and successfully treated. Since then, increasing numbers of Jarawas have sought treatment at the hospital and/or begun to make other contact with non-Jarawas on the islands. No malaria had ever been reported in the tribe until 2001, when an outbreak of febrile illness triggered a malariological survey. Malarial parasites, all identified microscopically as Plasmodium falciparum, were detected in the bloodsmears of 30 of the 179 Jarawas investigated. Although most malaria among the non-Jarawa inhabitants of the islands is caused by P. vivax, only P. falciparum was detected when blood samples from 26 of the subjects were investigated in PCR-based assays. Genetic-diversity studies, based on the msp¹ and msp² polymorphic markers, also revealed a relatively low level of polymorphism in the P. falciparum parasites infecting the Jarawas, compared with that seen in other areas of India. It seems possible that malarial parasites have only recently reached the Jarawas, as the result of the weakening of the tribe's isolation from other humans on the Andaman islands.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1179/136485905X51418

Affiliations: 1: Malaria Research Centre, Field Station, Car Nicobar (Malacca), Andaman and Nicobar Islands – 744301, India 2: Malaria Research Centre (Indian Council of Medical Research), 22 Sham Nath Marg, Delhi – 110054, India 3: Gobind Ballab Pant Hospital, Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands – 744101, India 4: Malaria Research Centre (Indian Council of Medical Research), 2 Nanak Enclave, Radio Colony, Delhi – 110 009, India

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Malaria among the Jarawas, a primitive and isolated tribe on the Andaman islands, India