Prevalence of P. falciparum parasite detected by microscopy and PCR in patients with successful treatment (n = 31).
a) Microscopy-defined parasitemias at different time points. Parasitemias declined rapidly during the first two days of treatment initiation. b) Proportion of microscopy positive individuals with available sample at different time-points. Asexual parasites were detected at the most two days after treatment. c) Species-specific qPCR-generated CT values (presented for all PCR positive samples) over time. qPCR remained positive up to 42 days after treatment. d) Proportion of individuals with species-specific qPCR positive samples over time. All samples collected during days 0–9 are positive by qPCR and thereafter in subsets of samples during different periods. e) Prevalence of infection and number of clones defined by msp2-genotyping PCR. The number of concurrent parasite clones decreased gradually over time. msp2-PCR remained positive the most until day 31 post-treatment. f) Proportion of individuals with positive msp2-PCR at different time points. g) Proportion of gametocyte positive samples by microscopy (gray bars) and gametocyte-specific qPCR (black bars). RNA samples were available for a total of 9 patients.
Symbols of the same shape and color (graph a, c, and e) correspond to the same patients in three graphs. Numbers on the bars and over the x-axes (graph b, d, f, and g) represent the total number of individuals with available sample at that time point.