DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i09.005

Pages: 3251-3254

The early diagnosis of malaria not only mitigates the sufferings but also reduces the transmission of the parasite in the community. Therefore precise laboratory diagnosis and species identification are very essential. The present study was conducted to compare the efficacy of centrifuged buffy coat smear, peripheral blood smear, and rapid antigen detection. A total of 399 samples were collected from all cases clinically suspected of malaria. Detection of malaria parasite was done by the following techniques: Staining of Peripheral blood smear with Leishman stain, Rapid antigen detection by chromatographic Immunoassay and centrifuged Buffy Coat Smear (CBCS). The total number of malaria positive cases was found to be 133 (33.33%).It was observed that CBCS had high sensitivity (85.38%) in detecting the malaria parasites as compared with PBS (83.84%), while PBS had high specificity (99.62%) in detecting the malaria parasites as compared with CBCS (98.88%). In comparison to the gold standard Rapid antigen test, it was observed that while both PBS and CBCS had excellent specificity, PBS thick smear had slightly higher sensitivity (83.9%) in detecting the malaria parasites as compared with PBS thin smear (81.5%), while CBCS thick smear had slightly higher sensitivity (85.61) in detecting the malaria parasites as compared with CBCS thin smear (85.60).