POMC and infection: By modifying Poc- and Pow-specific 18S rRNA real-time PCR assays and developing a classification algorithm to detect mixed Poc/Pow infections that avoids false-positive detection due to cross-reactivity, we show that mixed Poc/Pow infections occur naturally (~11% in our initial blood survey) and may be much more common than anticipated (89% by mosquito-based xenodiagnosis in our small sample).