An Inductive-Based Sensitive and Reusable Sensor for the Detection of Malaria

Over the years, malaria continues to be a fatal infectious disease. It is critical in less developed regions of the world, claiming several lives each year. Hence, the need of the hour is early detection for its effective control. The methods to detect the disease should be affordable to a multitude of people. At the same time, the methods should be sufficiently sensitive to detect the low levels of parasitemia for early diagnosis or screening when no symptoms are seen. To eliminate malaria, it is essential to screen the asymptomatic population so that the spread of malarial epidemic can be contained. This work is intended to provide a sensitive and reusable sensor based on the inductive sensing technique for screening and early diagnosis that can also be operated in a low resource setting. The single turn inductor fabricated on the printed circuit board has been used as a sensor to detect the change in magnetic property of hemoglobin caused by the malaria parasite. The proposed sensor requires no additional reagents for detection. It is capable of detecting 12.7 to 25.4 picograms of hemozoin in a 0.5 microlitre of phosphate buffer saline, which corresponds to merely 25 to 50 parasites. The obtained sensitivity is adequate for screening of asymptomatic populations. The proposed sensor is a step towards rapid, low cost, sensitive, reusable, portable, and quantitative malaria diagnosis which can be used in economically weaker malaria susceptible regions.