Primer reporte de un caso importado de Malaria por Plasmodium ovale curtisi en Paraguay, confirmado por diagnóstico molecular

Absence of asymptomatic cases of malaria in a historically endemic indigenous locality of the Department of Caaguazú, Paraguay: moving toward elimination

“…SnM-PCR amplifies the 18S small subunit ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (ssrDNA) of the parasite, which is present in multiple copies, with conserved and non-conserved regions that are characteristic of the four species (7) . This molecular method has been previously very useful, because it allowed the elucidation of an imported case of malaria from West Africa to Paraguay (8) . This case was initially mistakenly diagnosed using microscopy as an infection of P. vivax.…”

“…This case was initially mistakenly diagnosed using microscopy as an infection of P. vivax. The species of Plasmodium with very similar morphology, especially P. vivax and P. ovale, are difficult to differentiate using microscopy; however, the amplification of ssrDNA shows a fragment that is characteristic of P. ovale (8) .…”

“…In the second round, the amplification is performed using the PCR product from the first round as a template to amplify the four species of Plasmodium (P. falciparum 370 bp, P. ovale 407bp, P. vivax 476bp, and P. malariae 241bp) (12) . Details of the reaction have been described by del Puerto et al in 2015 (8) .…”

Epidemiology of Malaria in Paraguay

“…El empleo de métodos moleculares es una alternativa interesante para la identificación de casos importados, ya que hay especies de Plasmodios que son muy semejantes morfológicamente y pueden ser confundidos en el diagnostico por microscopia. En el año 2013 se reportó la identificación de la especie P. ovalecurtisi por el método de PCR múltiple semianidada (SnM-PCR) y la secuenciación de la subunidad pequeña del gen del ARN 18S a 11 un caso importado del África Occidental .…”