{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0237671","title":"Antibodies to full-length and the DBL5 domain of VAR2CSA in pregnant women after long-term implementation of intermittent preventive treatment in Etoudi, Cameroon","abstract":"In high malaria transmission settings, the use of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine-based intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy (IPTp-SP) has resulted in decreased antibody (Ab) levels to VAR2CSA. However, information of Ab levels in areas of low or intermediate malaria transmission after long-term implementation of IPTp-SP is still lacking. The present study sought to evaluate antibody prevalence and levels in women at delivery in Etoudi, a peri-urban area in the capital of Yaoundé, Cameroon, that is a relatively low-malaria transmission area. Peripheral plasma samples from 130 pregnant women were collected at delivery and tested for IgG to the full-length recombinant VAR2CSA (FV2) and its most immunogenic subdomain, DBL5. The study was conducted between 2013 and 2015, approximately ten years after implementation of IPTp-SP in Cameroon. About 8.6% of the women attending the clinic had placental malaria (PM). One, two or 3 doses of SP did not impact significantly on either the percentage of women with Ab to FV2 and DBL5 or Ab levels in Ab-positive women compared to women not taking SP. The prevalence of Ab to FV2 and DBL5 was only 36.9% and 36.1%, respectively. Surprisingly, among women who had PM at delivery, only 61.5% and 57.7% had Ab to FV2 and DBL5, respectively, with only 52.9% and 47.1% in PM-positive paucigravidae and 77.7% of multigravidae having Ab to both antigens. These results suggest that long-term implementation of IPTp-SP in a low-malaria transmission area results in few women having Ab to VAR2CSA.","journal":"PLoS ONE","year":2020,"id":107452,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9606,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":436311,"name":"Yukie Michelle Lloyd","orcid":"0000-0003-4597-3626","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":516475,"name":"Rosette Megnekou","orcid":"0000-0003-0692-5197","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":517100,"name":"Reine Medouen Ndeumou Seumko’o","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":516476,"name":"Ali Salanti","orcid":"0000-0003-2207-5575","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426239,"name":"Diane Wallace Taylor","orcid":"0000-0002-0988-4290","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":436315,"name":"Rose G. F. Leke","orcid":"0000-0002-5973-1145","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":436312,"name":"Jean Claude Djontu","orcid":"0000-0002-5035-4515","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":26,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:12:34.898963Z","pmid":"32797068","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}