Author(s)

Daniel Maitethia Memeu^1,2, Merenga Abdallah Sarroney², Ciira Maina³

¹Department of Physical Sciences, Meru University of Science and Technology, Meru, Kenya.
²Department of Physics, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.
³Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Nyeri, Kenya.

Malaria is one of the leading killer diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the disease is curable, early and accurate diagnosis is key to effective therapy. Existing malaria diagnostic techniques have low detection accuracy especially when the parasite load in the blood is low. In this paper, we report on a simple photo-thermal based technique for detection of the Plasmodium parasites’ biomarker (hemozoin) in blood smear samples. The technique has demonstrated 100% Plasmodium detection sensitivity and specificity from the ten blood smear test samples used.

Photothermal Induced Optical Scattering Modulation, Photoacoustic Probing, Hemozoin, Hemoglobin, Probe Beam, Excitation Beam

Memeu, D. , Sarroney, M. and Maina, C. (2018) Photo-Thermal Induced Optical Scattering Modulation Sensor for Malaria Diagnosis. Open Journal of Biophysics, 8, 185-193. doi: 10.4236/ojbiphy.2018.84014.