Current and Emerging Laboratory Techniques for Malaria Diagnosis

Effective diagnostic methods must continue to be developed due to the effects of malaria on world health. Malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes that affects both people and other animals. It isthe product of Plasmodiumparasites, which are transmitted through bites from infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Other sporozoan species responsible for malaria infections include the sporozoan parasites Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malaria, and Plasmodium knowlesi. Routine diagnosis of malaria is impeded in areas where the disease is endemic by technical and infrastructure issues with laboratories. Prompt and accurate diagnosis is essential since good disease management is one of the primary actions of the Global Malaria Control Strategy. Accurate malaria detection is also crucial in order to inform malaria control efforts through epidemiologic screening and surveillance, for research reasons to evaluate the effectiveness of antimalarial medications and vaccines, and for blood bank screening. This study's main goal is to show some of the new and effective ways to diagnose malaria that go beyond the gold standard, light microscopy, which has some problems

Incidence of Septicemia in Children Attending University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Introduction: Septicemia is an invasive infection where chemical substances released into the bloodstream causes morbidity and mortality in neonates. The developing countries carries major burden of the problem and Nigeria is not exceptional.Objective: The study was carried out to determine age/sex-related prevalence, causative agents and antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of neonatal septicemia in children at University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Nigeria.Methods: This retrospective study was carried out in the pediatric department for a period of twelve months. Blood culture test using thioglycollate broth and tryptone soya broth for isolation of microorganisms was adopted. Antimicrobial sensitivity pattern was done with disc diffusion method. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi square for significance.Results:A total of 598 children were examined, of which 394(67.9%) children showed negative blood cultures, while 204(34.1%) children had positive bacterial cultures and 2 children (0.3%) were positive for Candida albicans. Overall, Klebsiellaspp. was the most common pathogen, accounting for (37.8%) of the total isolates, which is followed by Staphylococcus aureus(28.4%), Escherichia coli(11.8%), unclassified Coliforms (8.3%), Pseudomonasspp. (4.9%), Proteusspp. (3.4%), Enterococcusspp. (2.9%) and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus(CONS) (2.5%) respectively. Early onset neonatal sepsis (EONNS) had Klebsiella spp as the most prevalent causative agent while Staphylococcus aureus was prevalent among the late onset neonatal sepsis (LONNS). Klebsiella spp. was susceptible to spafloxacin(87.0%) followed by ofloxacin (82.0%), amoxycillin-clavulanic acid (79.0%) and ceftazidime (65.0%) among the Gram negative organisms. In the category of Gram positive organisms, Staphylococcus aureus was highly sensitive to ofloxacin (81.0%) followed by spafloxacin (79.0%) and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (71.0%). Conclusion: The study showed Klebsiellaspp. and Staphylococcus aureus were the prevalent bacterial organisms of septicemia in children in University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Early diagnosis with use of appropriate antimicrobial treatment will effect intervention for management of the children