High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Genetic resistance to malaria occurs through both modifications of the immune system that enhance immunity to this infection and also by changes in human red blood cells that hinder the malaria parasite`s ability to invade and replicate within these cells. Host resistance to malaria therefore involves not only blood cell genes such as abnormal hemoglobins, Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, and Duffy antigens, which provide innate resistance, but also genes involved in immunity such as the major histocompatibility complex genes, which regulate adaptive immune responses. The resistance provided by modified blood cells aids survival through the dangerous years of early childhood, while the potent protection mediated by adaptive immune responses is more important in older children and adults living where malaria is endemic.