Modification of Optical Compound Microscope to Detect Malaria Blood Parasites Using Wright-Giemsa Staining Process with SURF Based Stitching

Abstract

Hematology is the study of diseases and disorders causing irregularities in blood cells. Hematology is used to determine the irregularities in the blood cell containing different parasites ranging from mild to severe symptoms. Malaria has been found to be the 9th leading cause of death in the country. Malaria is caused by a bite of an Anopheles mosquito, an infected mosquito carrying a virus called Plasmodium parasite that will then be released onto a person's blood stream. The general objective of this study is to detect blood parasite from sample blood smears. This study is obtrusive and the device requires a blood sample to be tested, the researchers let expert medical doctors and laboratorians to take the blood from the patients. In hope of helping the telemedicine in the Philippines the device is able to capture images from the microscope and designed an algorithm that will process the captured images stitching it into one whole image. In addition, the device can output if the blood sample is positive or negative based on the dominant color seen from the images. The prototype is designed to replace the analytics of a skilled hematologist in rural cases whereas shortage in experts is a major problem.