Understanding dynamics of Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes production: Insights from an age-structured model

•We present two modelling approaches of within-host malaria, ODEs and PDEs models.•Both models perform similarly for a suitable number of compartments in the ODE model.•The suitable number of compartments for the ODE is large and variable among patients.•We highlight a strong qualitative connection between gametocytes and parasitemia.•We open new perspectives predicting which hosts are most infectious to mosquitoes.