Scientists have discovered a way to deduce the risk of contracting malaria via a person's genes, thereby creating an opportunity to evaluate the threat of the disease to small children and save thousands of lives, according to the Guardian. The study, published by Nature, observed data on thousands of children in Africa to determine the specific protective variant that arises in genes.
Kenya was a primary focus in the study, with about a 40 percent increased protection against the disease.
"We can now say, unequivocally, that genetic variations in this region of the human genome provide strong protection against severe malaria in real-world settings, making a difference to whether a child lives or dies," said Dominic Kwiatkowski with the Sanger Institute and Center for Human Genetics.
Of the more than 500,000 people that are killed by malaria, an astounding 90 percent of those fatalities are children, according to the World Health Organization's 2013 estimations.
Interestingly enough, the point on the genome where the resistance takes place just so happens to be the point where humans and chimpanzees are most alike genetically - another interesting bit of information that could lead scientists to yet another mystery - according to Wellcome.
"We now need to drill down at this locus to characterize these complex patterns of genetic variation more precisely and to understand the molecular mechanisms by which they act," said Kwiatkowski.
