K & U5 Unit 5 Diagnosis Of Malaria

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K&U5- Diagnosis of malaria
Early and accurate detection of malaria is required to make sure that the patient is treated in time and also to prevent further spread of infection within the neighbourhood through local mosquitoes.
If diagnosis and treatment is delayed, it may increase the chance of death of the patient, therefore malaria should be treated as a possible medical emergency and health practitioners should know how to diagnose and treat malaria instantly.
A health practitioner should know what the signs and symptoms are of a patient infected with malaria. By knowing the signs and symptoms, the health practitioners would be able to follow up with tests to produce the necessary results which show for certain whether the patient has malaria. …show more content…

4. Molecular Diagnosis
Parasite nucleic acids are identified by using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Even though this technique may be somewhat more susceptible than microscopy, it is of restricted effectiveness for the diagnosis of acutely ill patients in the standard healthcare setting. PCR results are often not obtainable rapidly enough to be of value in establishing the diagnosis of malaria infection.
PCR is mostly beneficial for verifying the species of malarial parasite after the diagnosis has been recognized by either microscopy or RDT.
5. Serology
Serology antibodies identifies against malaria parasites, using either indirect immunofluorescence (IFA) or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serology does not detect present infection but rather measures precedent contact.
6. Drug Resistance Tests
These must be executed in focused laboratories to measure the receptiveness to antimalarial compounds of parasites collected from a definite patient. Two main laboratory methods are available:
 In vitro tests: where the parasites are grown in culture in the presence of increasing concentrations of drugs; the drug concentration that inhibits parasite growth is used as