Improving quantitation of malaria parasite burden with digital image analysis

Quantitation of malaria parasite burden has prognostic value as well as providing objective evidence of response to treatment or, potentially, to vaccination against malaria. Estimation of parasite load by microscopy is prone to inaccuracy and inconsistency. Digital image analysis is well suited to this application rather than to the more difficult task of malaria diagnosis and species identification. Preliminary work has shown the feasibility of using off-the-shelf hardware and software. Standardised banks of slides for comparing human and machine counts, cheaper imaging methods for laboratories with limited resources, and customisation of readily available image analysis software are proposed as priority needs.