Bushra Adeel, Sahar Mudassar, Nazma Kiran, Qurat-ul Ain Javaid, Farheen Ansari, Humera Kausar, Shakeel Waqqar.
Prevalence of plasmodium vivax associated malaria and screening of positive isolates for pvmdr-1 gene.
Rawal Med J Jan ;44(1):57-60.

Objective: To determine true occurrence of Malaria in suspected cases and prevalence of Plasmodium vivax infection in Malaria positive patients through phenotypic and genotypic identification methods and to detect pvmdr1 gene to serve as baseline investigation to detect Chloroquine (CQ) resistance. Methodology: Samples were collected during peak period of Malaria transmission. Leishman staining technique was used to detect different morphological forms of Malarial parasites inside erythrocytes. DNA was isolated and PCR was done to detect presence of pvmdr1 gene in randomly selected P. vivax positive isolates. Results: Of 1210 samples, 858(70.9%) were males, majority (72.2%) were of age between 16 and 45 years and only 35 (2.9%) of age below 5 years. Of 1210 suspected samples, 143 (11.8%) were confirmed to have Malaria and 142 (99%) were positive for P. vivax malaria. PCR confirmed presence of pvmdr1 gene in tested isolates. Conclusion: Antimalarial medicines should be recommended only after confirmed diagnosis of malaria. Drugs other than Chloroquine (plus primaquine) should not be prescribed to P. vivax malaria patients. Gene analysis of pvmdr1 gene may provide early signal of emerging CQ resistance.

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