Health ... Malaria
ASTMH (American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene)

Session Title: New Tools for Detection of Individuals with Low Levels of Malaria Infection

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Session Number: 174

Session Title: New Tools for Detection of Individuals with Low Levels of Malaria Infection

Session Type: Symposium

Session Start/End Time: Thursday, Oct 29, 2015, 10:15 AM -12:00 PM

Location: Marriott - Grand Ballroom Salon E

Session Description: The malaria eradication strategy is founded on the principle that malaria eradication requires the elimination of malaria-causing parasites, such as Plasmodium falciparum (Pf), from the human population. However, until recently there were many questions regarding diagnostic technology, knowledge gaps related to point-of-care test performance and the bioavailability and relevance of Pf biomarkers. For example, existing point-of-care Pf tests lack the sensitivity to identify a large percentage of asymptomatic individuals who nonetheless test positive for infection using nucleic acid-based tests. The lack of standardization in nucleic acid techniques has led to difficulties interpreting results across publications. Furthermore, rapid diagnostic tests have not historically been optimized for detection of asymptomatic infections. The role of HRP2 persistence in detecting asymptomatic individuals has been largely unexplored, and at the same time, the absolute relevance of the asymptomatic reservoir is unclear. Several ongoing initiatives are working to address these questions, thereby enabling development of and access to the most appropriate point-of-care Pf diagnostic tools for elimination. These initiatives are beginning to strengthen the evidence base and pave the way for new tools and techniques to identify and treat asymptomatically infected populations. Ultimately, these efforts will lead to more effective and efficient active infection detection strategies aimed at detecting and treating Pf-infected populations.

Presentations: Symposium Organizer Paul D. LaBarre Diagnostics, PATH, Seattle, WA, United States

Co-Chair Dennis Shanks Army Malaria Institute and University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

10/29/2015 10:15:00 AM Quantitative reverse transcription PCR: looking beneath the surface at the ‘iceberg’ of asymptomatic Plasmodium infections Sean Murphey Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

10/29/2015 10:35:00 AM HRP2 concentrating to achieve improved sensitivity in RDTs and qELISA David W. Wright Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States

10/29/2015 10:55:00 AM RDT enhancements for improved sensitivity to identify the hidden Pf reservoir Byung-Ki Cho Operations, Standard Diagnostics, Yongin, Korea, Republic of

10/29/2015 11:15:00 AM Evaluation of non-instrumented nucleic acid amplification by loop-mediated isothermal amplification (NINA-LAMP) for the diagnosis of malaria in Northwest Ethiopia Dylan Pillai University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada