Washington,
November 28 (ANI): A team of researchers including an Indian origin has
developed a new and sensitive method that makes it possible to diagnose
malaria from a single drop of blood or saliva.
With the development of this
method, the researchers hope to go one step further in identifying and
treating all patients suffering from malaria.
Malaria is a life-threatening
disease that strikes more than 200 million people every year - mainly in
Africa, Asia and Latin America. The disease is caused by the Plasmodium
parasite, which is spread by infected mosquito bites. Today, malaria
can be prevented and successfully treated, but more than half a million
people nevertheless die every year from the disease.
Large-scale monitoring and
treatment programmes during the past decade have reduced the
distribution of the disease, and the frequency of actual epidemics has
fallen. However, the number of malaria patients with relatively low
infection counts has increased, and the need for more sensitive methods
to diagnose the disease has thus increased dramatically.
To meet this need, researchers at
Aarhus University have developed a new method that can diagnose malaria
infections with very high sensitivity. The method is based on measuring
the activity of an enzyme called topoisomerase I from the Plasmodium
parasite.
The researchers have developed a
technology called REEAD (Rolling Circle-Enhanced Enzyme Activity
Detection) - which makes it possible to diagnose malaria from a single
drop of blood or saliva. This method is much more time-effective and
cost-effective than current diagnostic methods, and can be performed by
personnel who have no specialised training. It can therefore be used in
low-resource areas without the use of expensive equipment, clean water
or electricity.
The ongoing fight against malaria
is complicated by increasing problems with resistant Plasmodium
parasites. In addition, several Plasmodium species (P. vivax and P.
knowlesi) cannot be detected with the usual quick-test methods.
The new REEAD-based method
distinguishes itself from other quick-test methods because it can
measure whether a given Plasmodium infection is resistant to drugs. The
newly developed technology is also the only quick-test method that makes
it possible to diagnose the less common malaria parasites (P. ovale, P.
knowlesi and P. malariae) in addition to the most common Plasmodium
parasites (P. falciparum and P. vivax).
The unique sensitivity, combined
with its ability to detect infection in very small samples of blood or
saliva, makes the method suitable for large-scale screening projects.
This is of great importance in areas where the disease is close to being
eradicated, and where it is therefore essential to identify and treat
all patients infected with one of the above-mentioned parasites - even
those who do not show symptoms of the disease.
"This combination of molecular
biologists, doctors, engineers and statisticians has been important for
our success in developing the new method," said Associate Professor
Birgitta Knudsen, who is the driving force behind the project.
In addition to her group, which
is affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Centre (iNANO) and
the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University,
researchers from both Denmark (Department of Pathology and Department of
Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital) and abroad (Duke
University, University of Rome, University of St Andrews and University
of Lyon) contributed to this project.
The research team behind the new
method for diagnosing malaria include Charlotte Harmsen, Pia W. Jensen,
Magnus Stougaard, Emil L. Kristoffersen, Rikke Frohlich, Eskild
Petersen, Amit Roy, Christine J. F. Nielsen, Birgitta R. Knudsen,
Rodrigo Labouriau and Megan Yi-Ping Ho. (ANI)
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