Malaria occurs mainly in developing countries, where there are few laboratories that analyze blood samples and are far apart. This also means that testing in remote communities can be especially difficult. Even when patient samples are analyzed in situ, it will still need to include adding chemical reagents to each sample, followed by evaluation of the results.
In addition, many people simply do not like to have blood drawn, so they may be reluctant to participate in testing efforts for malaria.
That's why the new miniature handheld spectrometer was born. This proof-of-concept device was developed by a team at Australia's University of Queensland, led by Dr Maggy Lord.
The user simply presses the end of the spectrometer against the patient's earlobe or fingertips, then presses the button to activate. The device responds by shining a beam of harmless infrared light at the underlying tissue for 5 to 10 seconds.
Lord said: “Infrared light can penetrate the skin into the bloodstream and the reflected light is an indication of changes in the blood. Malaria infects red blood cells, causing structural and chemical changes including the presence of parasite-specific proteins. We hypothesize that these changes produce unique markers for those who are infected compared with those who are not.”
When the device processes the reflected light signal, it transmits the data wirelessly to the paired smartphone. The app on that phone will display the results in real time, letting the user know if the patient is infected with the malaria parasite.
The current model is a spectrometer that costs about $2,500 to build but can pay off quickly.
“Because it gives results quickly and requires no reagents and the device can scan around 1,000 people a day, it will be much more cost-effective than existing techniques,” said Lord.
The study was published in the journal PNAS Nexus. |