Abstract:
Malaria remains an important public health problem worldwide that affects approximately 300 to 500 million people, leading to over 1 million deaths each year. Definite diagnosis of malaria relies on microscopy detection of blood stages of parasites in peripheral blood which requires blood sample collection. However, the nested PCR method has shown to be more sensitive and superior to microscopy in detecting parasites in circulation, especially when co-infections of Plasmodium species occurred. Recent studies have revealed that P. falciparum DNA can be identified in urine and saliva of patients in malaria hyperendemic areas, albeit at a lower sensitivity than microscopy. To address whether P. vivax DNA could also be detected in saliva and urine specimens and to reaffirm the presence of P. falciparum DNA in these samples of infected individuals in a hypoendemic area, we collected blood, saliva and urine samples from 100 microscopy-positive and 20 microscopy-negative febrile patients who attended a malaria clinic in Tak Province, northwestern Thailand for nested PCR analysis targeting the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene of human malaria. Both P. falciparum and P. vivax have been known to circulate at a comparable rate in the study area. Comparing with microscopy results, nested PCR of saliva samples had a sensitivity of 74.1% for P. falciparum detection and 84% for P. vivax detection while 44.4% and 34.0% of the corresponding values were observed for urine samples. Both nested PCR results of saliva and urine samples had a specificity of 100% for identification of P. falciparum and P. vivax when compared with nested PCR results from blood. Co-infections of both species were found in 26 and 8 patients by nested PCR of blood and saliva samples, respectively. Although the positive rates of nested PCR of saliva samples for P. falciparum increased with parasite density, no such tendency occurred in results from nested PCR of saliva samples for P. vivax as well as those of urine samples. Saliva and urine samples could be alternative noninvasive sources of DNA for molecular detection of both P.falciparum and P.vivax. Further improvement of the detection method will offer an opportunity to use these samples for a practical malaria diagnostic purpose.