The mass diagnosis of malaria

Eva Baldrich

Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium, transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. Each year it causes more than 200 million new infections and the death of half a million people worldwide, 70 % of whom are children under the age of five. It is one of the diseases associated with poverty, and most cases occur in low-income countries.

The World Health Organization has launched an ambitious plan to eradicate malaria that involves conducting mass screening of the population in endemic regions, in order to apply early and effective treatment. This requires rapid, quantitative and reliable diagnostic tools that are capable of detecting asymptomatic patients or those with few parasites in their blood (low parasite load), while also accurately identifying which species of Plasmodium is causing the infection. This is crucial for administering the appropriate treatment and preventing the parasite from developing drug resistance.

Current diagnostic methods are based on time-consuming, laborious techniques, which must be carried out in specialised laboratories and which, in some cases, are unable to identify patients with a low parasite load. In this context, the present project focuses on the development of a compact, inexpensive and user-friendly device for mass malaria screening in developing regions. Such a device could be instrumental in diagnosing the initial stage of infection, which would allow for the early application of treatment for each patient and thus contribute significantly to the eradication of malaria.

• Xavier Fernàndez Busquets, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona, Spain

• César Fernández-Sánchez, Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM, CSIC), Spain

Compact Analytical Tool for robust MALaria decentralized diagnosis and community surveillance

€989,940.75