PLOS Pathogens just published a very interesting paper by Orengo and others at the Department of Medical Parasitology of the New York University School of Medicine and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School on how Plasmodium-infested red blood cells accumulate high concentrations of hypoxanthine. This is degraded into uric acid upon the rupture of these red blood cells, which is a danger signal for the immune system, inducing the production of inflammatory cytokine TNF (tumor necrosis factor) from dendritic cells in a mouse model. Possibly because of my limited knowledge of malaria pathology, it was a surprise to me that the real danger seems to be the malaria-induced inflammatory response. This is quite similar to dengue haemmorrhagic fever or shock syndrome, which I wasn't aware before.
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