Background & Objectives:Plasmodium vivaxmalaria was long thought to be absent from sub-Saharan Africa owing to the high prevalence of people lacking the Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines (DARC) on their erythrocytes. The interaction between P. vivaxDuffy binding protein (PvDBP) and DARC is assumed to be the main mechanism used by P. vivaxmerozoites to invade human erythrocytes. However, the increasing numbers of vivax malaria cases in Duffy-negative African individuals has raised questions about alternative P. vivaxinvasion pathway(s) other than PvDBP-DARC interaction. Since P. vivaxhas a tropism for CD71+ immature reticulocytes and the hematopoietic niches of the bone marrow may be a hidden reservoir of P. vivaxparasites, we hypothesized that P. vivaxmerozoites may be able to invade erythroblasts derived from Duffy-positive (DP) and Duffy-negative (DN) individuals. Therefore, our objectives were to (i) investigate the expression of DARC during DP and DN erythropoiesis and (ii) examine the infection of DP and DN erythroblasts with P. vivaxmerozoites in vitroto study and identify host receptors used by P. vivaxto invade erythroblasts.