Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology (Jun 2021)

Diagnostic Methods for Non-Falciparum Malaria

  • Alba Marina Gimenez,
  • Rodolfo F. Marques,
  • Matías Regiart,
  • Daniel Youssef Bargieri

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.681063
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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Malaria is a serious public health problem that affects mostly the poorest countries in the world, killing more than 400,000 people per year, mainly children under 5 years old. Among the control and prevention strategies, the differential diagnosis of the Plasmodium–infecting species is an important factor for selecting a treatment and, consequently, for preventing the spread of the disease. One of the main difficulties for the detection of a specific Plasmodium sp is that most of the existing methods for malaria diagnosis focus on detecting P. falciparum. Thus, in many cases, the diagnostic methods neglect the other non-falciparum species and underestimate their prevalence and severity. Traditional methods for diagnosing malaria may present low specificity or sensitivity to non-falciparum spp. Therefore, there is high demand for new alternative methods able to differentiate Plasmodium species in a faster, cheaper and easier manner to execute. This review details the classical procedures and new perspectives of diagnostic methods for malaria non-falciparum differential detection and the possibilities of their application in different circumstances.

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