Since 2016, the Dominican Republic has implemented large-scale strategies for the elimination of malaria at the national level. To achieve this objective, a precise, rapid and ultrasensitive diagnosis is necessary that, in addition to the classic diagnostic tests such as microscopy, allow the identification of asymptomatic carriers of Plasmodium Spp and thus eliminate the parasitic reservoirs in the Dominican population. This work aims to validate new molecular techniques such as loop-mediated isothermal DNA amplification (LAMP), which is a test with greater sensitivity and specificity than microscopy and rapid antigen detection tests (RDT). The method consists of taking random samples of asymptomatic patients located in the sentinel points or foci where more cases of malaria have been recently reported and / or patients with feverish symptoms which have no apparent cause of infection. The evaluation of this new molecular tool will allow us to determine the level of malaria infections with low parasitaemia (up to one parasite per microliter) and reveal the Plasmodium species present as a first step for the genetic characterization and subsequent study of the genome. In this way, it contributes to molecular epidemiological surveillance in our country and to achieve the millennium goal for the elimination of malaria.
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