Abstract

Malaria has been for millennia one of the best known and most destructive diseases affecting humans. Its high impact has aroused great interest for the development of new effective and reliable diagnostic techniques. Recently it has been recently published that hairs from mammal hosts are able to capture, hold and finally remove foreign DNA sequences of Leishmania parasites. The aim of this study was to check if Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) DNA remains stable in blood samples deposited in Whatman paper after suffering different transport and storage conditions, and to compare the sensitivity of these results with those offered by thick a smear and Rapid Diagnostic Test, and besides to examine whether P. falciparum DNA would be detected and quantified by Real time quantitative PCR (qPCR) from hairs of people with different types of malaria. P. falciparum Histidine Repeat Protein II (pHRP-II) antigen detection and P. falciparum DNA were detected in 18 of 19 dry blood samples adhered to Whatman paper (94.74%), besides, Plasmodium DNA was also detected in seven out of 19 hair samples analyzed (36.84%), remaining stable until analysis for several months under the exposure to different environmental conditions. Although the sensitivity of PCR for the diagnosis of malaria in hair samples is not as high as blood analysis, the study of Plasmodium DNA presence in blood and hair could constitute a complementary tool with numerous advantages in sample collection, transport and storage. We suggest that the method could be also applied to medical, forensic and paleo-parasitological diagnosis, not only for malaria but also for searching many other pathogens in hair samples.

Highlights

  • Malaria is one of the best known and most destructive disease affecting humans

  • All of them came from the district of Gakenke (Rwanda, Africa) with confirmed malaria caused by P. falciparum (10 women and 9 men, aged from 4 to 31)

  • Patient no. 3, who was treated with quinine and had slight parasite load, showed negative results in both rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) bands

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Summary

Introduction

Malaria is one of the best known and most destructive disease affecting humans. It is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito and caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Five species of this genus are known to cause infections in humans—Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium knowlesi, with P.falciparum being the most virulent and deadly species. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 5551; doi:10.3390/ijerph17155551 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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