Detection of malaria antigen in blood by inhibition ELISA.

Demonstration of parasite associated antigen in blood by inhibition ELISA in malaria patients and controls is described. The test was negative in all the healthy controls and positive in 90 per cent of the Plasmodium vivax malaria cases. The test was found to be quite sensitive, being able to detect 5 parasites/10(6) RBC in a case of natural P. falciparum infection. There was 95.3 per cent agreement between the results of this test and IgM-IIF test.