VWF and malaria: In malaria patients as a whole, IL-18 correlated positively with degree of parasitemia (assessed by qPCR), disease severity (defined by the WHO criteria [18]) and degree of endothelial cell activation (assessed by plasma vWF levels) and negatively with haemoglobin levels, platelet counts and kidney function (assessed by eGFR) (Table 2 and Fig. 2).