At the time of the assay 17 of the 78 children had positive blood smears; however there was no significant difference in the overall frequency of malaria-specific IFNγ+ (P = 0.20), TNFα+ (P = 0.29), or IL-10+ (P = 0.21) CD4+ T cells between children with or without parasitemia. This evidence concerns the gene TNF and parasitic infectious disease.