CD8A and malaria: Although CD8+ T cell-mediated immunity is vital during liver stage malaria, CD8+ T cells were previously thought to play little to no protective role during blood stage malaria (Kurup et al., 2019), due to the lack of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) expression on erythrocytes (Kumar and Miller, 1990; Vinetz et al., 1990).