Surprisingly, despite the parasitological protection observed in the spleen in SIR-treated hamsters, we found a decreasing trend in IFN-γ production in the same tissue, suggesting that the mediated protection in our model may not be due to the expected SIR effect (increase of IFN-γ production), or at least we could not detect it by analyzing the whole spleen at five weeks post-infection. This evidence concerns the gene IFNG and infection.