THE USE OF PEPTIDE ELISA IN DETERMINING MALARIA ENDEMICITY

A study was undertaken with the objective to find out whether a reliab le transmission index could be established by a simple peptide ELISA. This would be important to evaluate the success of the bioenvironmenta l malaria control programmes implemented in endemic areas like the Hal dwani and Shankargarh districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. We have estim ated antimalarial antibodies against three synthetic peptides derived from blood stage antigens of Plasmodium falciparum and against P. falc iparum crude antigen by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), in children and adults. We have found that while all the peptides react w ith serum antibodies, as does the whole crude blood stage antigen, a n onapeptide from RESA antigen gave the most uniform results. Our result s suggest that synthetic peptides, which are easy to obtain and can be fully characterized, may offer a simple way to measure malaria endemi city.