Temporal trends in Plasmodium vivax diversity in eastern Cambodia evidence declining transmission

BackgroundElimination of Plasmodium vivax is challenging due to its dormant liver stages (hypnozoites), which can reactivate weeks or months after the primary infection, causing relapses and ongoing transmission of the parasite. Despite these challenges, P. vivax clinical case numbers have declined over the past decade in Cambodia. We used parasite genotyping to assess whether the decline in case numbers was reflected in parasite diversity and relatedness as a proxy to transmission. MethodsGenotyping was conducted on 182 symptomatic P. vivax isolates collected in eastern Cambodia in 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2023. A panel of 93 microhaplotype markers (vivaxGEN panel) was genotyped using Illumina sequencing. Population genetic measures were applied to determine infection diversity and relatedness (identity-by-descent (IBD)) each year. ResultsThe genetic results correlated well with clinical case numbers for the study years. The percentage of polyclonal infections was 5% in 2023 compared to 22-48% in earlier years (p<0.05) suggesting substantial reduction in superinfection and aligning with accelerated primaquine use in 2021. The cases in 2023 also had the highest percentage of infections with IBD >0.95 with one or more other infections (81.4% versus 8.9-10.8% in 2014-2019) indicative of inbreeding following population bottlenecking. In 2019, there was a spike in polyclonal infections (48%) and population diversity following local interruption of critical malaria control services. ConclusionsOur findings illustrate the potential of microhaplotype genotyping to inform on P. vivax transmission to assess intervention efficacy. In eastern Cambodia, the data provides evidence to support of widespread use of radical cure for patients with P. vivax malaria.