Mangaluru, US experts develop diagnosis test for malaria

MANGALURU: A novel FISH test for malaria diagnosis has been developed by researchers of the US and Mangaluru using an LED light source which is suitable for malaria-endemic countries which are short on resources. It detects all strains of malaria. Dr Jyotsna Shah and her team of researchers at ID-FISH Technology Inc., California, in association with researchers at IGeneX Inc., California, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi, Nova Meditech and Research Centre, Mangaluru, Kasturba Medical College Hospital, Mangaluru and support from National Institute of Health, Maryland, developed this novel fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) method for detecting malaria infection in blood smears. The gold standard for diagnosing malaria has been microscopic examination of Giemsa stained blood smears. Physician Dr Srinivas Kakkilaya says the limited sensitivity and specificity in field conditions of blood smears spurred research into better methods of diagnosis. Although many formats have been developed, none proved better than the microscopic examination, he added. In Mangaluru, Dr Kakkilaya, Aravinda Rao, biochemist at Nova Diagnostic and Research Centre, contributed by designing and performing experiments and analysing data, while Dr Shaila T Bhat and Dr Ruchi Sinha of KMC Hospital contributed by performing the experiments and providing materials and analysis tools. This novel method uses fluorescent dye labelled rRNA-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% sensitive compared to 89.9% and 81.1% of the Giemsa stained smear and rapid tests respectively. In 2013, malaria caused 198 million infections and 5.84 lakh deaths worldwide. 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. Dr Kakkilaya said this simple and cost-effective method will be a boon to India and other countries.