Comparison of the Parasite Density and Severe Malaria Prediction

Malaria and its related complications are a major problem in most African countries. Accurate diagnosis of the disease is key to proper management and control and an ideal diagnostic parameter that correlates to disease outcome would be helpful in correctly identifying patients that need hospitalization versus those that can be managed at home. This study compared the ability of three diagnostic methods to correctly categorize patients enrolled with a clinical diagnosis of either mild malaria or severe malaria. Parasite load was determined by microscopy, antigen ELISA for secreted parasite antigens, namely PfHRP-2 and PLDH and quantitative qPCR for total nucleic acids of the 18s ribosomal RNA (18s rRNA) gene.