People with malaria attract more mosquitoes

The malaria-causing protozoan Plasmodium falciparum may facilitate its own spread by making people more alluring to mosquitoes, according to biomedical researchers reporting in the September PLoS Biology.

P. falciparum spends part of its life cycle in mosquitoes and the remainder in people. After a mosquito carrying the parasite bites a person, protozoa migrate from the wound to the liver.