There were significant increases in plasma concentrations of heme non-malaria 24.1 μM (IQR 19.1–29.7), malaria 26.9 μM (IQR 20.1–39.5), p < 0.0001, Fig 3A), HO-1 (non-malaria 1.8 ng/mL (IQR 1.2–2.3), malaria 2.5 ng/mL (IQR 1.1–5.1), p < 0.0001, Fig 3B) and CXCL10 (non-malaria 180.4 pg/mL (IQR 101.1–328.6), malaria 705.7 pg/mL (IQR 459.0–1154), p < 0.0001, Fig 4B) among malaria patients compared to non-malaria subjects (Table 2). Here, HMOX1 is linked to malaria.