EPO and anemia: In several human studies, EPO production was defective or levels were not as high as would be expected for the degree of anemia observed (Burgmann et al., 1996; El Hassan et al., 1997; Vedovato et al., 1999; Leowattana et al., 2008), however, other studies reported elevated levels of EPO in the serum of African children with severe P. falciparum-related anemia (Burchard et al., 1995; Verhoef et al., 2002).