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Diagnosing malaria with a
cell phone
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[December 02, 2015]
By Ben Gruber
COLLEGE STATION, TX (Reuters) - New
technology that transforms a cell phone into a mobile polarized
microscope can diagnose malaria in a Rwandan village with the same level
of accuracy as a hi-tech lab in a major Western city, according to Texas
A&M University biomedical engineers developing the device.
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 "The way they diagnose malaria now is with a microscope but it is
with a big bench top microscope that is relatively complicated to
use, takes a trained technician, and you have to have the facility
for that scope in a centralized lab somewhere. So basically what we
are taking is that gold standard and making it into a portable
device," said Gerard Cote, a professor of Biomedical Engineering.
The add-on device, known as a mobile-optical-polarization imaging
device (MOPID), makes use of a smart phone's camera features to
produce high-resolution images of objects 10 times smaller than the
thickness of a human hair. The device images a blood sample using
polarized light that can detect a malaria parasite byproduct called
Hemozoin crystals which appear as very bright dots in the image and
are an accurate indicator of infection.
According to the scientists, once the device is attached to the
phone, the diagnosis takes just minutes using a phone app.
"An application software would take that image and automatically
count the number of red blood cells, count the number of parasites
over different fields of view. And then by doing that you can
determine if they have malaria or not," Cote said.
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In 2015, there have been around 214 million cases of malaria
globally so far, approximately 438,000 of which were fatal - with 90
percent of those deaths occurring in Sub Saharan Africa, according
to the World Health Organization.
It's those stark statistics which inspired the team to keep the
device as affordable as possible, to ensure it could be used where
it's needed most. Smartphones are widely available in Africa and the
team says the cost of the add-on optics will be less than $50 (USD)
with the disposable blood sampling cartridges priced at less than a
dollar.
The team plans on field testing the cell phone microscope next
summer in Rwanda.
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