Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Microscopy in Malaria Diagnosis

Malaria is a life threatening parasitic disease which causes enormous morbidity and mortality in tropical African countries. Successful prevention and treatment of an infected individual heavenly depends on successful diagnosis using recommended techniques. This routine laboratory technique tends to have different performance indices. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and microscopy in malaria diagnosis. A total of two hundred consented study subjects were randomly selected and enrolled for the research. Vein puncture technique was used to collect blood from the subjects and analysed using microscopy (Giemsa stain) and PCR. DNA samples were extracted using Quick-DNA™ Miniprep plus Kit with catalog No. D4069. 18S rRNA gene of Plasmodium falciparum from chromosome 13 were amplified using the primers F5’AACAGACGGGTAGTCATGATTGAG3’ R5’GTATCTGATC GTCTTCACTCCC3’. Malaria prevalence of 167 (83.50%) and 105 (52.5%) were recorded respectively using microscopy and PCR. Microscopy had a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 84.91%, 23.40%, 55.53% and 57.89% respectively with an overall accuracy value of 0.81. PCR had a sensitivity value of 53.89%, specificity 54.54%, positive predictive value 85.79% and negative predictive value of 18.94% with an overall accuracy of 0.54. Both microscopy and PCR demonstrated significant level of accuracy and relatively good performance indices. Therefore microscopy and PCR are highly recommended as malaria diagnostic techniques and further research should carried out to determine the influence of some biological factors of both the parasite and the host on the outcome of the diagnosis using both PCR and microscopy.