DETECTION OF MALARIAL PARASITES IN ANOPHELES STEPHENSI BY NESTED POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION FROM KARACHI- PAKISTAN

Abstract

Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes were trapped from Karachi and its suburbs -Pakistan and examined for the detection of malarial parasites by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Plasmodium genus specific nested PCR amplification was applied on all samples.  Only head and thorax of mosquitoes were used for pools preparation. Nested 1 product of Plasmodium spp. positive samples were further processed for PCR amplification with species specific primers for P. falciparum and P. vivax. Total 610 pools of single mosquitoes were processed. Out of which 3.27% pools were found positive for P. falciparum and 0.8% for P. vivax and mixed infection was found in 2.13%. Nested PCR considered as a significantly high sensitive technique for the detection.