Prevalence of Plasmodium spp. in malaria asymptomatic African migrants assessed by nucleic acid sequence based amplification

Abstract

Background: Malaria is one of the most important infectious diseases in the world. Although most cases are found distributed in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, Central and South Americas, there is in Europe a significant increase in the number of imported cases in non-endemic countries, in particular due to the higher mobility in today's society.

Post-Arrival Screening for Malaria in Asymptomatic Refugees Using Real-Time PCR

“…The prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in our study was 3.1% by real-time PCR, much lower than the rates reported in other studies. 5,27,30 However, those studies selected specific populations, often with common demographic or geographic criteria and from groups thought to be at high risk of malaria. Our study represents a consecutive sample (except for the few missed because of administrative error) of all government-sponsored refugees coming to Edmonton during the study period.…”

“…24 The reported prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in refugees screened post-arrival ranges from 2.4% to 31.8%, depending on the target population and the method of diagnosis. 5,[25][26][27][28][29][30] Over the past decade, the risk of asymptomatic refugees developing clinical malaria has been underscored by the occurrence of two local outbreaks in North America. In 1992, an outbreak was reported in North Carolina in a group of 402 Montagnard refugees from Indochina 10 ; subsequent screening showed a malaria prevalence of 58% by microscopy.…”

Evidence-based clinical guidelines for immigrants and refugees

“…Initial searches for documents about screening for malaria in immigrants and refugees generated many retrospective and prospective reviews of screening in asymptomatic migrants, several of which related to refugees. [358][359][360][361] Some of these articles provided recommendations on screening for malaria in migrants from areas where the disease is endemic; however, none reported use of a systematic review methodology. We found no randomized controlled trials investigating the effect of routine screening of asymptomatic individuals on morbidity and mortality related to malaria.…”

Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification in Diagnosis of Disease Pathogens

“…However, the sensitivity could not reach requirement for early infection patients or patients under treatment at the late stage. QT-NASBA and qRT-PCR are two methods developed to measure low concentration samples [23][24][25] . QT-NASBA is widely used in malaria diagnosis since 2000.…”