Fig. 3.

Standard models for malaria. Khoury et al. [4] reviewed the main within-host models for malaria infections. (a) The Plasmodium falciparum life cycle begins with (A) infection in a host by an infectious mosquito. (B) Sporozoites traverse the bloodstream to the liver where they infect liver cells and replication and rupture to release merozoites into the blood. (C) Merozoites invade red blood cells (RBCs), and the parasite matures into schizont, which rupture RBCs to create more merozoites. (D) Some parasites commit to sexual development producing gametocytes (E), which are then taken up by mosquitos during a blood meal. (b) The standard ODE model of Plasmodium infection considers uninfected RBCs (U) and parasitized RBCs (P), which are created when a merozoite (M) infects an RBC. (c–d) Age-structured models are also used to model Plasmodium infection with either (c) an ODE system representing the stages of development of the parasitized RBC compartment or its equivalent partial differential equation formalism. Reprinted with permission from [4]