ABO and infection: The hypothesis that the survival advantage of blood group O with respect to the threat malaria poses is probably rather due to a milder course of the disease than due to a lower risk of infection is supported by findings showing that the ABO locus is associated with the serum levels of molecules known to bind to P. falciparum-infected red blood cells that are also markers of damage to vascular endothelial cells and inflammatory processes such as sE-selectin, sP-selectin and sICAM-1 [29-31].