Analysis of the cell dynamics between baseline and the first malaria episode for available paired samples revealed a significant difference in frequency only for the CD45RO+ NK cell subset within the total PBMC pool in HbAA children (median frequency 0.17% vs. 0.03%, respectively, P = 0.016; Supplementary figure 3h–n), and for CD45RO+ cells in the CD8+ NK subset in HbAS children (median frequency 20% vs. 5.9%, respectively, P = 0.036) (Supplementary figure 5h–n). Here, CD8A is linked to malaria.