
A third-grade, primary school student from the Mfou District of Cameroon in Central Africa deposits saliva into a tube that is part of a new test that can detect malaria before symptoms occur. (Photo provided by Rhoel Dinglasan.)
An easy-to-use saliva test to screen for the parasite that causes malaria has been developed by a team of researchers led by a University of Florida scientist.
The non-invasive “spit test” could be a key tool in efforts to eradicate malaria, which kills a child every two minutes, says UF infectious diseases researcher Rhoel Dinglasan. The study on the test was published today in Science Translational Medicine.
Currently, clinicians test for malaria using a blood test, but the test has drawbacks that reduce its effectiveness. The test requires skin pricks that often are stressful for children and their parents. Blood tests often are less reliable because subclinical infections with the parasites that cause malaria can be missed by such tests, leading some patients to come down with malaria although they believed they were malaria-free. The tests also require an infrastructure, such as mobile clinics and trained staff, and can lead to accidental exposure to blood for both patients and clinic workers.
By contrast, the saliva test requires only spitting into a tube, and the test can be administered outside a clinical setting, ideally in schools or community centers, Dinglasan says. Early detection can lead to early treatment and the prevention of disease and further transmission of malaria.
“What if we can identify a child before they get sick because there’s something in their saliva,” Dinglasan says. “If we get to them earlier, they can be cured well before they get the disease.”
Early, subclinical detection of malaria is crucial to malaria eradication because individuals who carry the parasite without exhibiting symptoms are the reservoir that leads to infection of mosquitoes and transmission of the disease. Detecting the presence of the parasite before symptoms appear can save lives because malaria often erupts just days after the parasite can be detected.
The saliva test detects a novel biomarker for Plasmodium falciparum parasites. In some areas of the world, the parasites have acquired a mutation and are therefore no longer detected by the blood-based tests, Dinglasan says. But the saliva test detects an essential protein the parasite needs for survival, which should avoid the problem of mutation and keep the test effective long-term. The diagnostic test detects female parasites circulating in an infected human who is asymptomatic but is carrying the parasite and likely to come down with malaria within a week. The advantage of detecting females over males is that there are four times as many female parasites as males in an infected human.
Dinglasan began working on the test with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014, while still at Johns Hopkins University, which has licensed the test. The research team includes 24 scientists, and the study was conducted with over 300 children in Cameroon, Zambia and Sierra Leone.
Malaria kills about 500,000 children each year, mostly under the age of 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“We are trying to understand malaria transmission by working with people who are not yet sick because those are the people we miss in the clinic,” Dinglasan says. “Malaria is like a big iceberg that we’ve always chipped away at on top, above the water line. But it’s the bottom of the iceberg, this reservoir for transmission, that we don’t understand because it’s a population that, until now, we could not see.
“This test takes us below that water line, so we can see how big the reservoir is,” Dinglasan says.
Learn more: New saliva-based test detects malaria before symptoms appear
The Latest on: Malaria
via Google News
The Latest on: Malaria
- Malaria: Scientists warn against self-medication, says wrong use of drug may trigger ulceron January 11, 2021 at 9:29 am
Although the campaign against self-medication has been on for a long time, several recent studies show that the prevalence ...
- Towards a zero malaria Ghana: New Juaben South Municipal shows the wayon January 9, 2021 at 3:52 am
The New Juaben South Municipal Assembly has espoused that it is committed to ensuring that as far as that municipality is concerned, Ghana can and has the ability to achieve zero malaria cases by the ...
- Repeated blood meals for mosquitoes can speed development of malaria-causing parasiteson January 8, 2021 at 2:30 pm
An additional feeding on human blood by a mosquito infected with Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, can accelerate the development of ...
- Offline App Expands Malaria Protection for Children in Beninon January 7, 2021 at 11:53 pm
These mosquitoes can spread malaria, a disease that threatens hundreds of thousands of children’s lives across the region. But malaria can be prevented with several interventions, including ...
- A New Target for Malaria Vaccineson January 7, 2021 at 12:06 pm
An article published in Experimental Biology and Medicine (Volume 246, Issue 1, January, 2021, describes a new target for the development therapies and vaccines for malaria. The study from the West ...
- Multiple blood feeding by mosquitoes may increase malaria transmissionon January 3, 2021 at 9:26 pm
Multiple bouts of blood feeding by mosquitoes shorten the incubation period for malaria parasites and increase malaria transmission potential, according to a study published December 31 in the ...
- A New Strain of Drug-Resistant Malaria Has Sprung Up in Africaon January 2, 2021 at 6:12 am
Ever since the deadly parasite responsible for malaria was discovered in the late 19th century, science and global health experts have been waging a vigorous Sisyphean battle against the disease it ...
- Genetic mutations that cause malaria drug resistance common in Asia, Africaon December 31, 2020 at 1:44 pm
Genetic mutations that fuel resistance to a drug intended to prevent malaria in pregnant women and children are common in countries that are fighting the disease, according to a PLOS Genetics analysis ...
- Multiple mosquito blood meals accelerate malaria transmissionon December 31, 2020 at 11:56 am
Multiple bouts of blood feeding by mosquitoes shorten the incubation period for malaria parasites and increase malaria transmission potential, according to a new study.
- New mutations in malaria parasite encourage resistance against key preventive drugon December 31, 2020 at 11:06 am
In the ongoing arms race between humans and the parasite that causes malaria, Taane Clark and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) report that new mutations that ...
via Bing News