Rapid and High Sensitivity Malaria Diagnosis: A Microfluidics Approach

Abstract

Most malaria deaths could be prevented if the infection is detected early. Thus, it is important to have access to a fast, sensitive, and reliable detection tool for the diagnosis of malaria in the clinical settings. However, the current malaria diagnosis relies on microscopic examination of blood smear, which is time consuming and labor intensive. Here, we present a novel malaria diagnosis technique for the rapid detection and quantification of malaria infected red blood cells. The technique combines the use of margination for the separation of malaria infected cells and magnetic resonance relaxometry system for the detection of malaria parasites.