Plasmodium vivax is the most widespread malaria parasite worldwide, with up to two billion people at risk of infection.
As well as causing illness and death in its ‘active’ stage of infection, the parasite can hide as hypnozoites, a dormant stage, in the liver, and is a significant cause of ‘relapsing’ malaria.
These hypnozoites, undetectable with current diagnostics, can be responsible for >80% of all blood-stage infections.
Identifying and targeting individuals with hypnozoites is thus essential for accelerating and achieving malaria elimination. A major gap in the P. vivax elimination toolkit is the identification of individuals carrying clinically silent and undetectable hypnozoites.
