Overall, 22 to 33 proteins composed the discriminatory patterns with accuracies above 90% across the three comparisons (Figure 1a, blue bars) . Twenty-six proteins discriminated healthy from ill (hospital admitted) malaria-negative children (CC vs. DC) with similar accuracy (Figure 1a, green bar) . To examine proteins that are specific to malaria infection we compared each of the malaria-positive groups (CM, SMA, UM) to the DC group, obtaining discrimination accuracies above 80% (Figure 1a . orange bars). Finally, to assess differences between defined malaria syndromes we compared the malaria-positive groups (Figure 1a . yellow bars). In the comparison between CM and SMA, the two major severe syndromes, the accuracy was 70% (24 proteins). Higher accuracies between 70 to 80% were observed when samples from either CM or SMA groups were compared to UM children, using 36 and 54 proteins, respectively.