Figure 1

Effect of artemether treatment with and without 200 μL of whole blood on hematocrit level and platelet counts. Plasmodium-berghei ANKA-infected mice showing signs of ECM on day 6 of infection (n = 6–11 per group) received artemether (ARM) 20 mg/kg (20 μL) given IP, and mice in one of the groups also received 200 μL of whole blood (BL) also given IP. (A) Hematocrit: mice with ECM before treatment showed a mean 9% decrease in hematocrit in relation to uninfected controls (45.5 ± 3.72% versus 50.0 ± 2.83%, P = 0.0345). Treatment with ARM led to further decreases in hematocrit after 6 and 24 h (41.4 ± 4.10% and 33.2 ± 3.72%). Whole blood transfusion given together with ARM prevented the decrease in hematocrit at 6 h (ARM + BL: 46.0 ± 4.06%; ARM only: 41.4 ± 4.10%, P = 0.0352) and provided substantial protection for the strong decrease in hematocrit at 24 h (ARM-BL: 42.2 ± 5.63%; ARM only: 33.2 ± 3.72%, P = 0.0015, versus). (B) Platelet count: platelet count was drastically reduced by nearly 90% in mice with ECM compared to uninfected controls (101 ± 33.9 versus 938 ± 75.2, P = 0.0012). Treatment with ARM only did not change platelet levels within 6 h and 24 h. Whole blood transfusion given together with ARM led to significant recoveries in platelet counts compared to ARM only-treated mice at 6 h (221 ± 68.8 versus 93 ± 16.5, P = 0.0061) and 24 h (451 ± 134.5 versus 147 ± 59.9, P = 0.0004). Data are shown as mean ± standard deviation and Student t-test was performed for statistical analyses comparing two groups.