Where: Cairns room D003.003 videolinked to Townsville room 048.202
Malaria elimination relies on identifying those individuals carrying gametocytes and likely contributing to human-to-mosquito transmission. P. falciparum and P. vivax parasites and gametocytes were quantified in six cross-sectional surveys, including 18979 individuals in Brazil, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands. In high transmission settings 85-99% of the gametocyte biomass was found in children <6 years, while in low transmission settings gametocytes were equally distributed across ages. 37-91% of individuals positive for gametocyte by RT-qPCR were microscopy positive for asexual stages or gametocytes. Interventions to reduce transmission in high transmission areas will have the greatest effect when targeted towards children, but in order to achieve elimination in low transmission settings individuals of all ages need to be targeted. Microscopy is a valuable tool to identify asymptomatic infections likely contributing to transmission.
Cristian Koepfli from the University of California Irvine has developed a range of molecular methods to diagnose, quantify and genotype malaria parasites, and applied them in large cross-sectional and cohort studies. His current research includes the development of a novel, highly-sensitive method to diagnose hrp2-deletions in P. falciparum, and in the frame of an ICEMR he studies P. falciparum and P. vivax molecular epidemiology in Ethiopia and Kenya.
