Malaria and the 'last' parasite: how can technology help?

Abstract

Malaria, together with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis are the four most deadly infectious diseases globally. Progress in eliminating malaria has saved millions of lives, but also creates new challenges in detecting the 'last parasite'. Effective and accurate detection of malaria infections, both in symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals are needed. In this review, the current progress in developing new diagnostic tools to fight malaria is presented. An ideal rapid test for malaria elimination is envisioned with examples to demonstrate how innovative technologies can assist the global defeat against this disease. Diagnostic gaps where technology can bring an impact to the elimination campaign for malaria are identified. Finally, how a combination of microfluidic-based technologies and smartphone-based read-outs could potentially represent the next generation of rapid diagnostic tests is discussed.

Keywords: Elimination; Malaria; Microfluidics; Rapid diagnostic tests; Smartphones.

Fig. 1

Scanning electron micrograph showing the porousity of nitrocellulose membrane (Reprinted with permission from [36] copyright 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry)

Fig. 2

Examples of microfluidic-based diagnostics for low resource settings. Reprinted with permission: a from [72], copyright 2015 The American Association for the Advancement of Science, b from [73], copyright 2017 Royal Society of Chemistry, c from [74] copyright 2018, Diagnostics for All. Image courtesy of Diagnostics for All

Fig. 3

Examples of microfluidic prototypes for malaria diagnosis using different methods. Reprinted with permission: a from [86], copyright 2016 Wiley–VCH, b from [77], copyright 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry, c from [80] copyright 2014 Elsevier, d from [68] copyright 2012 Royal Society of Chemistry, e from [83] copyright 2014 Springer Nature