In the malaria group as a whole (n = 131), both MPO (r = 0.19, p = 0.03), sCD14 (r = 0.24, p = 0.006) and in particular sCD25 (r = 0.29, p = 0.001), but not sCD163 (r = 0.15, p = 0.1), were correlated with disease severity as assessed by the WHO definition [15], with the strongest correlation for sCD14 (r = 0.33, p = 0.011) in those without HIV infection (n = 61), and for sCD25 (r = 0.27, p = 0.022) in those with HIV co-infection (n = 70) (Table 2). Here, MPO is linked to malaria.