An automatic system for computing malaria parasite density in thin blood films

Abstract

Malaria is a major worldwide health problem, specially in countries with tropical climates and remote areas. In this paper, we present an automatic system for estimating malaria parasite density in thin blood smears. The proposed approach is based on simple image processing methods that can be implemented efficiently even on low budget devices. The method has been tested on images acquired under different illumination and acquisition setups and has produced encouraging results, achieving a sensitivity of 89.3%.