In the uncomplicated malaria group, children with at least one long GTn repeat allele produced the most TNF (p = 0.007, Figure 5 and Additional file 1: Table S1), and children homozygous for Δ22 produced the most IL-6 compared to children with other genotypes (p = 0.041, Figure 4 and Additional file 1: Table S1). Here, TNF is linked to malaria.