Short report: Hookworm infection is associated with decreased body temperature during mild Plasmodium falciparum malaria

Abstract

Malaria's pyrogenic threshold seems to depend on factors such as age and transmission patterns. We studied the temperature at admission of 200 patients with mild malaria and observed that after adjusting for body mass index, the presence of other helminths, and other confounders, only hookworm-infected patients had lower fever at admission that those without hookworm infection (37.5 ± 0.9 and 38 ± 0.8, respectively; P < 0.001). Thus, we suggest the age dependence of the pyrogenic threshold could have been confounded by the epidemiology of iron deficiency.