Title : Comparison of different diagnostic techniques for detection of Malaria infection in blood samples collected from Malaria endemic areas of Assam and Arunachal

Background: According to World Health Organization, about 260 million people worldwide are infected with malaria and 1.5-2.7 million patients die annually. It is also a major problem in India. Prompt and accurate diagnosis of malaria is the key to prevent disease morbidity and mortality. Design of the study: Blood samples were collected from 188 individuals having history of malaria/suspected with malaria during period from August, 2011 to July, 2012 from different block PHC under different malaria endemic area of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.This investigation was conducted to compare the diagnostic performance of five routinely used methods viz, Microscopic slide experiment, ParaHit kit, SD Bioline malaria Antigen test, Advantage Mal Card test kit and Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods (assuming PCR as standard method) for detection of malaria parasite. Results: PCR (gold standard method) results showed that 21.28% of the total cases were positive for Pf, 0.53% positive for Pv and 3.72% for mixed infection. In comparison with PCR, Microscopic slide examination was 81.25% sensitive and 95.83% specific for detection of malaria parasite. The sensitivity and specificity of SD Bioline malaria antigen test was 95.83% and 85.42% respectively whereas Advantage Mal card test for detection of malaria parasitaemia gives 91.67% sensitivity and 85.42% specificity. However, ParaHit-f kit test exhibited lowest sensitivity (77.08%) and specificity (68.75%) among the five diagnostic methods. Conclusion: From the above mentioned result we conclude that ParaHit-f kit test appears to be poor sensitive and less specific for detecting malaria parasites. Although PCR cannot be done in field, considering its high degree of sensitivity and specificity, it can be used for further confirmation of malaria. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 4, Issue 9, September-2013 ISSN 2229-5518 2587 IJSER © 2013 http://www.ijser.org IJSE