Malaria Analyser, created within the engineering faculty, automatically monitors how far malaria has progressed in the patient's blood.

In malaria patients the status of the disease in their blood needs to be monitored every six hours in order to provide suitable treatment.

It is hoped the new programme will eliminate the need for these repeated blood tests as the routine process will be carried out by the software, cutting time and improving accuracy, according to the creators.

Apicha Suksompong, who is studying computer science, is one of four people in the team behind Malaria Analyser. He hopes that by decreasing the amount of time needed for routine blood analysis, the programme will give laboratory technicians more time for other crucial work.

The process of analysing blood for malaria is laborious. Each analysis requires a study of approximately 1,000 blood cells in groups of 10 to 20 on a series of slides. Malaria Analyser can give the blood status within 30 to 40 seconds per slide, compared to 10 minutes per slide manually.

"It is necessary to analyse around 50 slides for one case," said Apicha.

The software not only provides raw data, including the blood cells' dimensions and the light density of the blood, but also classifies the stage of the disease.

Normally, diseased blood passes through three stages; blood without disease has only one stage.

"When working manually, a lab technician analysing blood also classifies the stage malaria has reached," said Apicha.

Malaria Analyser not only provides this analysis, it transforms the raw data into an analysis report," said Apicha

The software has an accuracy rate of 85 to 100 per cent, which is more accurate than working manually.

Apicha and his teams hope to enhance the software so it can be used in real situations, as there is currently no software designed for specific diagnosis of this notorious disease. The only software on the market is for general blood analysis.

asina@nationgroup.com

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation