DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i05.066

Pages: 1770-1773

Malaria presents a diagnostic challenge in most tropical countries like India. Microscopy remains the gold standard for diagnosing malaria, but it is labour intensive and depends upon the skill of the examiner. Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDT’s) have been developed as an easy, convenient alternative to microscopy. The aim of this study was to correlate and compare the conventional diagnostic methods like thick smear, thin smear with immunological methods in the diagnosis of malaria. The present study was conducted in the department of pathology at Dr R.N Cooper hospital for a period of 2 years. A total of 6366 blood samples referred for malaria testing were included in the study. All the samples were subjected to three 3 different techniques like thin smear stained by fields stain, thick smear stained by JSB stain and antigen detection test. Among the 6366 samples tested 300 samples (4.7%) samples were positive for malaria parasite. Of the positive samples 298(99.33%) samples were positive by thick smear, 208(69.6%) samples were positive by thin smear and 279(93%) were positive by antigen detection test. The sensitivity of thick smear thin smear and antigen detection was 99.33%, 69.8% and 91.03% respectively. Mixed infections were easily detected by all the three methods. In conclusion we suggest the combined use of antigen detection and smear examination to improve the sensitivity in detecting malaria. Antigen detection can be used as an initial screening test followed by smear examination for confirmation of species, diagnosis of mixed infections and for calculation of parasitic index.