Research priorities for the development and implementation of serological tools for malaria surveillance.

Research priorities for the development and implementation of serological tools for malaria surveillance. F1000Prime Rep. 2014;6:100 Authors: Elliott SR, Fowkes FJ, Richards JS, Reiling L, Drew DR, Beeson JG Abstract Surveillance is a key component of control and elimination programs. Malaria surveillance has been typically reliant on case reporting by health services, entomological estimates and parasitemia (Plasmodium species) point prevalence. However, these techniques become less sensitive and relatively costly as transmission declines. There is great potential for the development and application of serological biomarkers of malaria exposure as sero-surveillance tools to strengthen malaria control and elimination. Antibodies to malaria antigens are sensitive biomarkers of population-level malaria exposure and can be used to identify hotspots of malaria transmission, estimate transmission levels, monitor changes over time or the impact of interventions on transmission, confirm malaria elimination, and monitor re-emergence of malaria. Sero-surveillance tools could be used in reference laboratories or developed as simple point-of-care tests for community-based surveillance, and different applications and target populations dictate the technical performance required from assays that are determined by properties of antigens and antibody responses. To advance the development of sero-surveillance tools for malaria elimination, major gap...
Source: F1000 Medicine Reports - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: F1000Prime Rep Source Type: research