Instituto de Microbiología y Parasitología (IMPA)

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Browsing Instituto de Microbiología y Parasitología (IMPA) by Author "Francisco Cuevas"

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    (Proyecto) Aplicación de Nuevas herramientas Moleculares para Fortalecer Detección y Eliminación de malaria en Republica Dominicana.
    (2026) Francisco Cuevas; Edita Aquino
    In Dominican Republic (DR), effective malaria control measures for prevention and diagnosis combined with raised funding, has resulted in a 50-75% reduction of the malaria burden over the last decade. Recognizing this achievement, DR is now (2016-2020) under a strategic plan towards malaria elimination. Critical for malaria elimination is an accurate diagnosis of the disease. Light microscopy, the standard of practice for malaria diagnosis in DR, and the malaria rapid diagnostic tests can detect up to 50parasite/mm3 of blood. But as malaria prevalence declines in the country, the proportion of cases that fall below this detection level increase, leading to patients untreated. Clearing this parasite reservoir is critical for malaria elimination as these individuals still remain infectious to the mosquito promoting the disease transmission. We aim to understand the number of cases that fall below the detection limit of standard diagnosis and explore the usage of alternative molecular diagnosis easy to use in the field, with sensitivity of detecting 1 parasite/mm3 of blood and to a relatively low cost. Moreover, although in the country the antimalarial chloroquine, proclaim still effective, reported resistance in neighbor country constitutes a serious threat. We propose to genetic and phenotypic characterize the Dominican parasites to evaluate known drug resistance markers and perform in vitro drug sensitivity tests to understand the level of resistance to chloroquine and to other antimalarial drugs worldwide used. Our findings will be valuable to establish a scientific framework that supports the development of a cost effective intervention strategy for malaria elimination in Dominican Republic.