Donor screening for malaria by antibody and antigen detection in endemic area

Transfusion-associated malaria is one of the dreaded threats to the safety of transfusion services in this malaria endemic world. The main drawback in preventing this menace is that routine blood donor screening techniques are not very satisfactory. In this study, blood donors were screened for antimalarial antibody by micro ELISA and Indirect Fluorescence Antibody (IFA) test and malarial antigen by monoclonal antibody (MAB) technique. A total of 19.37% and 12.39% blood donors showed significantly high antibody by ELISA and IFA test respectively, and 0.35% donors showed the presence of antigen by the MAB technique. Solitary dependence on malarial antibody detection as a screening test might have led to rejection of 19.02% blood donors without any apparent infection. So antigen detection in blood donors with the help of the MAB technique seems to be more sensitive and a practically feasible screening test to prevent transfusion malaria.