High-throughput pooling and real-time PCR-based strategy for malaria detection.

Molecular assays can provide critical information for malaria diagnosis, speciation, and drug resistance, but their cost and resource requirements limit their application to clinical malaria studies. This study describes the application of a resource-conserving testing algorithm employing sample pooling for real-time PCR assays for malaria in a cohort of 182 pregnant women in Kinshasa. A total of 1,268 peripheral blood samples were collected during the study.