Replication of the Sl2/α+thalassaemia interaction will be required, and we suggest that α+thalassaemia genotype should be included as an important confounding variable in future malaria epidemiological studies and that efforts should continue to discover the mechanism of protection afforded by α+thalassaemia, which remains controversial (Carlson et al., 1994; Fowkes et al., 2008; Krause et al., 2012; Opi et al., 2014; Opi et al., 2016). The gene discussed is MMP10; the disease is malaria.