Diagnosing malaria could soon be detected through a simple breath test. Australian scientists have made a breakthrough discovery for infected people who have the potentially-deadly disease, malaria.
The scientists found out that the chemical make-up of the breath of malaria patients have distinctive properties that can make a diagnosis through this simple test, medical officials reported on Tuesday.
ABC Live Broadcast reports that the discovery could pave way in the development of a simple-breath test to diagnose a disease that kills more than half a million people yearly. The World Health Organization reports that about 3.2 billion people - almost half of the world's population - are at risk of malaria. In 2013, there were about 198 million malaria cases.
The levels of chemicals specifically four sulfuric compounds were detected in direct correlation with the severity of infection and disappear after treatment or cure. These chemicals cannot be detected by the human nose but with the use of proper equipment and instruments, the disease can be diagnosed.
"What is exciting is that the increase in these chemicals were present at very early stages of infection, when many other methods would have been unable to detect the parasite in thexbody of people infected with malaria," CSIRO research group leader Stephen Trowell said as reported in The Guardian.
In an exclusive interview with ABC, Dr Trowell said, "It's much easier and more pleasant from somebody if you don't have to take blood, if you can just get them to breathe into you know, like a breathalyser for example, breath into a simple instrument."
"There is something like almost 200 million cases of malaria recorded each year and well over half a million people are still dying of malaria each year. We need new tools both to treat and also to diagnose malaria and this will be I think a strong contribution in that area," he added.