RT Journal Article
T1 Plasmodium species differentiation by non-expert on-line volunteers for remote malaria field diagnosis
A1 Ortiz-Ruiz, Alejandra
A1 Postigo, María
A1 Gil-Casanova, Sara
A1 Cuadrado, Daniel
A1 Bautista Santa Cruz, José Manuel
A1 Rubio, José Miguel
A1 Luengo-Oroz, Miguel
A1 Linares Gómez, María
AB Background: Routine feld diagnosis of malaria is a considerable challenge in rural and low resources endemic areas mainly due to lack of personnel, training and sample processing capacity. In addition, diferential diagnosis of Plasmodium species has a high level of misdiagnosis. Real time remote microscopical diagnosis through on-line crowdsourc‑ing platforms could be converted into an agile network to support diagnosis-based treatment and malaria control in low resources areas. This study explores whether accurate Plasmodium species identifcation—a critical step during the diagnosis protocol in order to choose the appropriate medication—is possible through the information providedby non-trained on-line volunteers.Methods: 88 volunteers have performed a series of questionnaires over 110 images to diferentiate species (Plasmodium falciparum,  plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium knowlesi) and parasite stag‑ ing from thin blood smear images digitalized with a smartphone camera adapted to the ocular of a conventional light microscope. Visual cues evaluated in the surveys include texture and colour, parasite shape and red blood size.Results: On-line volunteers are able to discriminate Plasmodium species (P. falciparum, P. malariae, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. knowlesi) and stages in thin-blood smears according to visual cues observed on digitalized images of parasitized red blood cells. Friendly textual descriptions of the visual cues and specialized malaria terminology is key for volunteers learning and efciency.Conclusions: On-line volunteers with short-training are able to diferentiate malaria parasite species and parasite stages from digitalized thin smears based on simple visual cues (shape, size, texture and colour). While the accuracy of a single on-line expert is far from perfect, a single parasite classifcation obtained by combining the opinions of multiple on-line volunteers over the same smear, could improve accuracy and reliability of Plasmodium species identifcation in remote malaria diagnosis.
SN 1475-2875
YR 2018
FD 2018-01-30
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/101714
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/101714
LA eng
NO Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
NO MINECO
NO Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
NO Madrid Regional Government
NO European Regional Development Funds
NO Amazon Web Services
NO Fundación Renta Corporación
DS Docta Complutense
RD 28 dic 2025