Figure 2.

Difficulty in distinguishing between Babesia microti and Plasmodium falciparum on blood smear. (A) Babesia microti and P. falciparum are the only challenging apicomplexa. Plasmodium falciparum is only species for which confusion was described among all Plasmodium species responsible for human malaria. Dendogram shows clade organization of human infecting apicomplexa. Babesia microti is the type species of parasites that get separated early in piroplasmida evolution. Babesia divergens, B. duncani and B. venatorum are the major species infecting human among the major branch of piroplasmida encompassing true Babesia sp. Plasmodium and piroplasmida are hemoparasites. Other apicomplexa are intestinal parasites. (B) Challenging diagnosis of B. microti vs P. falciparum. Blood smears from patients with babesiosis or malaria are similar. Similarity is true for B. microti during human infection only