A team of scientists from Imperial College London, the MRC Unit The Gambia, the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro in Burkina Faso, ProtonDx Ltd, and the NIHR Global Health Research Group (NIHR134694) have developed and validated a low-cost, point-of-care diagnostic that can rapidly detect low levels of malaria from a finger prick.

The test, called Dragonfly, relies on technology originally created at Imperial and its spinout ProtonDx. The technology allows users to diagnose malaria with high accuracy, without the need for extensive laboratory equipment or infrastructure. Results can be delivered in as little as 45 minutes, and the test is sensitive enough to detect even the lowest levels of malaria parasites in the blood—meaning that people without symptoms of malaria can still be identified.