Figure 2

First detection of gametocytes and malaria infection clearance over time. These stacked plots show the Aalen–Johansen estimated cumulative proportion of infections that either carry detectable gametocytes (yellow) or resolve their malaria without detectable gametocytes over time -in weeks- (grey). Shown in blue is the proportion of infections that are event free over time, i.e. that have a detectable infection without detectable gametocytes. (A) Includes all 104 incident infections, symptomatic and asymptomatic. The percentage of infections having detectable gametocytes at the time of initial parasite detection (0 weeks) and by 4 weeks was 14% and 29%, respectively. (B) Includes 88 infections that were initially asymptomatic. The percentage of infections having detectable gametocytes between 0 and 4 weeks was 15.9% and 33.7%, respectively. (C) Includes 22 infections that were initially asymptomatic and had long duration of infection (\(\ge\) 12 weeks). The percentage of long-duration infections that had detectable gametocytes at 0 weeks, between 0–4 weeks and 0–12 weeks was 31.8%, 81.8% and 90.9%, respectively. Triangles represent observed cumulative prevalences of malaria infection clearance over time; dots represent the summed cumulative prevalences of both the first detection of gametocytes and malaria clearance (to compare with the corresponding estimates in the stacked plot). 95% confidence intervals are presented in error bars. Right-censored infection times ((infections where gametocytes were not detected or malaria clearance was not observed) were not accounted for in the numerator of the observed prevalences, hence the underestimation in the cumulative incidence compared with the stack plot in (A) and (B). Long infections (C) did not have any right-censored observations.