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Experts from Mangaluru, Kenya, USA, develop new malaria testing method

  •   Sun, Sep 13 2015 12:24:05 PM

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Sep 13: The blood smear-giemsa test which has been relied on since over a century for detecting presence of malaria parasites has been proving of late to be not very effective. A team comprising experts from the city among others, has now found a simple test, known as fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH), for detecting this disease, which happens to be widely prevalent in the city in particular and district in general since times unknown.

Dr Jyotsna Shah from ID-Fish Technology Inc, and her team comprising experts from KMC in the city, and from USA and Kenya, have developed this new test. This is a new method in which LED light is used to conduct blood smear test. Dr Srinivas Kakkilaya and biochemist, Arvind Rao, designed this test and experimented on it at Nova Diagnostic Centre here. Dr Shaila T Bhat and Dr Ruchi Sinha provided equipment and other things needed for conducting experiments.

Dr Srinivas Kakkilaya says that in the previous tests, presence of at least 20-25 Plasmodium parasites was required for detecting presence of malaria. However, in the new method, presence of even a single parasite can be detected, he adds.

This novel method uses fluorescent dye labelled RNA-specific probes that bind to the malaria parasites and the brightly coloured parasites are detected under a fluorescence microscope. The test takes about an hour and is 98.2 percent sensitive compared to 89.9 per cent and 81.1 percent of the Giemsa stained smear and rapid tests respectively.

Researchers also successfully evaluated an LED light source with a blue-green filter set that can be attached to a standard light microscope with 100X objective to read FISH processed smears.

As the earlier method was not very effective, it posed problems for the district administration to control the disease. The new method has provided a ray of hope for the coastal region, and one hopes that this new testing method will pass all relevant stages and this technology comes into use soon in malaria diagnosis.


With DHNS Inputs
  

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Comment on this article

  • Donald Roche, Mangalore One

    Mon, Sep 14 2015

    Congratulation to Dr. Jyotsna Shah & team for your latest test(FISH) for detecting Malaria.
    We have a reliable diagnostic lab at KMC jyothi circle in the city. We require sincere technicians in each and every lab to find out correct results of the test . As some labs have technicians who does their work without sincerity.
    "... With tears and toiling breath,
    I find thy cunning seeds,
    O million -murdering Death.
    I know this little thing
    A myriad men will save.
    O Death, where is thy sting?
    Thy victory, O Grave?
    Sir Ronald Ross wrote the poem following the discovery that Malaria parasite was carried by the Anopheles mosquito.

    DisAgree Agree [6] Reply Report Abuse

  • Jossey Saldanha, Mumbai

    Sun, Sep 13 2015

    We saved Millions of USD ...

    DisAgree [1] Agree [9] Reply Report Abuse


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