HAMP and malaria: In agreement with a study in Indonesian school children (de Mast et al., 2010), asymptomatic malaria was also associated with an increase in plasma hepcidin (explaining 7% of variance; p < 0·0005), both in the presence and absence of inflammation, suggesting that malaria regulates hepcidin via non-inflammatory, as well as inflammatory pathways (Armitage et al., 2009).