Assessing and Strengthening African Universities' Capacity for Doctoral Programmes

Imelda Bates and colleagues developed and validated an evidence-based tool for evaluating doctoral programmes in African universities

The genetic susceptibility to hyperreactive malarial splenomegaly in Kumasi, Ghana

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Diagnostic Performance of Blood Film Microscopy and PfHRP2-based RDT in a Routine Clinical Setting of a Secondary Health Facility in Ghana

Background: Malaria remains a major public health threat claiming many lives particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Light microscopy and RDT are the mainstay tests in the clinical settings for malaria diagnosis. Many studies report varying levels of validity of these tests compared to molecular methods like PCR. Documentation on such comparative study involving the use of molecular techniques as reference test is scanty in Ghana. This study therefore assesses the diagnostic performance of these tests compared to PCR.&#x0D; Methods: Blood film microscopy (thin and thick), RDT and nested PCR were run on blood samples from a total of 188 malaria suspected patients. The accuracy indices of the microscopy and RDT were calculated using the results of the PCR as the reference test.&#x0D; Results: A total of 188 patients were recruited with females constituting the majority 128 (68%). The paediatric age group 1-10 years carried the largest burden of malaria by means of all the 3 tests. A sensitivity of 47.37% (95% ci, 37.03 – 57.88%) was shown by both the microscopy and RDT with specificity of 93.55% (95% ci, 86.48 – 97.60) and 100% (95% ci, 96.11 – 100.00%) and kappa co – efficient of 0.41 and 0.47 respectively.&#x0D; Conclusion: Both microscopy and RDT exhibited high level of specificity but low sensitivity. Significant number of malaria parasitaemic patients as revealed by the PCR was missed by both the RDT and blood film microscopy and thus went undiagnosed.</jats:p

Determining The Potential Value Of Salivary Plasmodium Falciparum Hisditine-Rich Protein 2 And Lactate Dehydrogenase As A Non-Invasive Test For Malaria

Abstract Objective: Light microscopy which is a blood-based test is the Gold standard for malaria diagnosis in the clinical settings. The low sensitivity of Microscopy coupled with the challenges associated with blood sampling necessitates exploring alternative methods of identifying malaria cases. The aim of this study was to detect the presence of Plasmodium Lactate Dehydrogenase (pLDH) and Plasmodium falciparum Histidine-Rich Protein 2 (PfHRP2) in the saliva of suspected malaria patients and to compare the diagnostic accuracy of these saliva-borne biomarkers with the results of blood film microscopy using Nested PCR as the reference test. Results: Malaria prevalence rates of 51 (27.13%), 80(42.55%), 117 (62.23%) and 95 (50.53%) were detected by the Microscopy, saliva pLDH, saliva PfHRP2 and the PCR respectively. The sensitivity of the saliva PfHRP2 ELISA, 78.95% (95% CI, 69.38-86.64%) and saliva pLDH ELISA, 64.21% (95% CI 53.72 -73.79) was better than the blood film Microscopy and showed moderate agreement with results of the Nested PCR with Kappa co-efficient of 0.5 and 0.44 respectively.</jats:p

Determining the Potential Value of Salivary Plasmodium Falciparum Hisditine-Rich Protein 2 and Lactate Dehydrogenase as a Non-Invasive Test for Malaria

Abstract Background Malaria remains an important public health threat claiming many lives particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Light microscopy which is a blood-based test is the Gold standard for laboratory diagnosis of malaria in the clinical settings. The lack of sensitivity of Microscopy coupled with the challenges associated with blood sampling necessitates exploring alternative methods of identifying malaria cases. Aims and Objectives The aim of this study was to detect the presence of Plasmodium Lactate Dehydrogenase (pLDH) and Plasmodium falciparum Histidine-Rich Protein 2 (PfHRP2) in the saliva of suspected malaria patients and to compare the diagnostic accuracy of these saliva-borne biomarkers with the results of blood film microscopy using Nested PCR as the reference test. Methods The research was a comparative study. Matched saliva and blood samples of suspected malaria patients were collected. The blood samples were aliquoted into 2 smaller volumes and used to run blood film microscopy (thick and thin) and Nested PCR to detect DNA of the 5 Plasmodium species known to clinically infect man. Sand-wiched ELISA was separately run to qualitatively detect pLDH and PfHRP2 in the saliva samples. Accuracy indices of the saliva-based assays (saliva pLDH and PfHRP2) were compared with the conventional blood-based Microscopy. Results Of the participating 188 subjects, malaria prevalence rates of 51 (27.13%), 80(42.55%), 117 (62.23%) and 95 (50.53%) were detected by the Microscopy, saliva pLDH, saliva PfHRP2 and the PCR respectively. The sensitivity of the saliva PfHRP2 ELISA, 78.95% (95% CI, 69.38-86.64%) and saliva pLDH ELISA, 64.21% (95% CI 53.72 -73.79) were better than those obtained for the blood film Microscopy. Conclusions The saliva pLDH and the PfHRP2 ELISAs were found to be more sensitive (64.21% and 78.95% respectively) in defining malaria cases than the results obtained for the conventional blood film microscopy. Both the saliva pLDH and the PfHRP2 ELISAs showed moderate agreement with the results of the Nested PCR with Kappa co-efficient of 0.44 and 0.5 respectively.</jats:p