EDMONTON – A University of Alberta researcher has modified a piece of oilsands equipment so it can automatically and accurately count malaria parasites in a blood sample.
Chemical and material engineering professor Sirish Shah, a native of Kenya, believes the technology could transform diagnosis and treatment of the disease – as well as other blood-borne infections such as tuberculosis, anemia and dengue virus – in developing countries.
About 216 million cases of malaria occurred around the world in 2010 and 655,000 people died, of which 91 per cent lived in Africa, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 86 per cent of the deaths were children.
Currently, lab technologists in Africa and other nations where the mosquito-borne disease is spread have to manually count the parasites in hundreds of blood samples each day, Shah said.
“The method is highly error-prone. Miss a parasite and the consequences can be quite tragic,” he said Monday. “A patient could get cerebral malaria and die.”
Malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes found in 106 countries and territories. It can cause fever, chills and flu-like symptoms, as well as death in severe cases. It can be prevented and treated with antimalarial treatment.
A clinic in Uganda can see up to 3,000 patients each day, said Yashasvi Purwar, a masters student in chemical and materials engineering. To accurately diagnose malaria, a pathologist has to look through a microscope at between 15 and 20 blood samples for each patient, and count the red blood cells and the tiny specks that are the parasites. While pathologists in countries such as Africa are well-trained, there are too few of them to handle the case load and not enough training spots to fill the need, Purwar said.
He and Shah have translated a technology first used in the oilsands industry to do that work automatically.
The idea sprouted after a chance meeting at an Oregon wedding reception several years ago when Shah met a medical doctor who focused on malaria. Shah told the doctor he had created an imaging processing system for the oilsands industry – using a simple digital camera and a complex algorithm – to catch valuable heavy oil or bitumen from being lost in the production process of Suncor Energy. The technology measures and finds the line separating the floating bitumen from the water, sand and tailings settling below, allowing cleaner recovery.
The two wondered if the same imaging technology could also be used to detect and count malaria parasites in a drop of blood. Purwar jumped aboard in 2009 and adjusted the algorithm or formula to correctly detect and count the parasites in a blood sample.
Now, the engineering team is searching for investors so they can modify a light microscope, link it with a camera or smartphone with photo technology, and turn into it the mathematical application so the equipment can analyze the image and immediately send the results to any lab in the world. No technician would ever have to look through the microscope and treatment could start more quickly.
“This is our dream,” Shah said. “Mobile devices are now ubiquitous.”
The hand-held device could then be taken door-to-door in malaria hot spots, bringing diagnosis to the patient instead of the patient seeking treatment at remote clinics once the disease has already become critical.
“It’s given you a consistent, reliable and accurate measure of,” Shah said. Such diagnostic tests could be done daily once a person is given anti-malarial drugs to ensure the drugs are working and killing the parasites. If parasites still show up in high numbers, suggesting they are drug-resistant, a different medication could be given, Shah said.
“It could be a lot faster. The technology is here. The algorithm is here. It’s the hardware we need to put together.”
Shah imagines a new piece of equipment could be developed in a few years, and for cheaper than a $3,000 to $5,000 compact microscope if mass produced. It could then be adapted to accept mathematical formulas for tuberculosis or anemia.
“The bigger picture is important. We’ve now translated the oilsands work into (the) malaria (field),” Shah said. “But it could mushroom into something really big: a digital pathology tool box. … The implications would be tremendous.”
Purwar said, “When we have something very portable and we can go door to door, we’re looking at eradicating diseases like malaria.”
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