Smartphone operated tool uses light beam to detect malaria

16/12/2022 0 Comments read Health & Science

The malaria detection tool collects an infrared signature for a mobile phone to process. Photo Credit: ©The University of Queensland.

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 16.12.2022 (SciDev.Net): A quick, affordable, non-invasive detection tool could help accelerate progress in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ target to eliminate malaria, say researchers who developed it.

The WHO’s global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030 aims to reduce malaria incidence and mortality rates by at least 75 per cent by 2025 and at least 90 per cent by 2030 against a 2015 baseline. But by 2021, malaria case incidence and deaths are both off track by 48 per cent. Based on the current trajectories, the world will be off track in reaching the malaria targets by 88 per cent, according to Abdisalan Noor, head of the Strategic Information for Response Unit, WHO Global Malaria Programme.

To help get back on track, researchers from Australia and Brazil have come up with a handheld, smartphone-operated, near-infrared spectrometer that shines infrared light for about five seconds on a person’s ears, arms, or fingers to detect changes in the blood caused by malaria.

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New way to stop falciparum malaria transmission

26/12/2019 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, 26.12.19 (SciDev.Net): Australian scientists have successfully blocked the deadliest malaria parasite —- Plasmodium falciparum — in its transmission stage, paving the way for developing preventative therapies to stop the spread of the disease.

Lead researcher Justin Boddey from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and University of Melbourne says, “We have built on our previous studies, where we identified in the P. falciparum parasite an enzyme called plasmepsin V, an enzyme essential for the parasite to grow inside red blood cells. We showed that if you inhibit the enzyme’s activity then you can kill the parasites as they are growing in red blood cells.”

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Call for global coalition against malaria

07/07/2018 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.07.2018 (SciDev.Net): The inaugural Malaria World Congress (2—5 July) in Melbourne has called on the global community to work unitedly to enhance political and financial support to combat the debilitating disease.

“The status quo is not okay as so much suffering depends on us acting, and acting vigorously,” said Brendan Crabb, immunologist and chief executive officer of Burnet Institute, a Melbourne-based not-for-profit research and public health organisation, while delivering the keynote closing address.

“It is not just engaging but putting the vulnerable communities that are the least listened to at the head of the table — to innovate, and to collaborate, is what will give us the motivation to finish the job (malaria elimination) in the countries that need the last mile to be achieved,” Crabb said.

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