India

Aminopeptidase N1 (APN) is one of the important enzymes involved in blood digestion and is up-regulated along with several other enzymes in response to bloodmeal ingestion. APN is a zinc metalloprotease that cleaves one amino acid residue at a time from the amino terminus of the protein. The APN1 gene of the Indian malaria vector Anopheles culicifacies Giles was cloned and characterized. The An. culicifacies APN1 (AcAPN1) gene has an Open Reading Frame of 3084 basepairs which encodes a putative protein of 1027 amino acids.

Malaria Elimination Demonstration Project (MEDP) was started as a Public-Private-Partnership between the Indian Council of Medical Research through National Institute of Research in Tribal Health, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh and Foundation of Disease Elimination and Control of India, which is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative of the Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited. The project’s goal was to demonstrate that malaria can be eliminated from a high malaria endemic district along with prevention of re-establishment of malaria and to develop a model for malaria elimination using the lessons learned and knowledge acquired from the demonstration project.

Despite declining incidence over the past decade, malaria remains an important health burden in India. This study aimed to assess the village-level temporal patterns of Plasmodium infection in two districts of the north-eastern state of Meghalaya and evaluate risk factors that might explain these patterns.