Figure 8

Effects of standard deviation of development time of intracellular asexual forms on gametocyte levels. Results are from simulated infections in which the host cleared all parasites within three years from primary release of merozoites, and which also made mature gametocytes. Gametocytes are assumed to be invisible to acquired immunity. The ratio of the parasite days of mature gametocytes to parasite days of asexual forms, P _MG /PD _Asx , was binned by PD _Asx and by the standard deviation of development time of intracellular asexual forms, σ _Asx . The horizontal length of an individual block shows the bin size in PD _Asx , and the vertical extent of a block show the bin size in σ _Asx . Results are only shown for bins that contained 10 or more simulations. (A) PD _MG /PD _Asx for simulated P. falciparum infections in which gametocytes are unaffected by host immune responses. (B) Same as (A), except for simulated P. vivax infections. (C) PD _MG /PD _Asx for simulated P. falciparum infections in which model innate response cleared mature and immature gametocytes at the same rate that it clears asexual forms. (D) Same as (C), except for simulated P. vivax infections. (E) Color code used for PD _MG /PD _Asx .