Fig 1.
Malaria prevalence of studied sites in western Kenya based on (A) microscopy and (B) conventional PCR.
Locality information can be referred to S1 Table. Areas of elevation below 1500 m were indicated by light gray and above 1500 m by dark gray. Black, blue, and red circles represent sites of low (<5%), moderate (5–25%), and high (>25%) malaria prevalence.
Fig 2.
Boxplots comparing (A) prevalence rate detected by microscopy and conventional PCR methods for all sites as well as the lowland and highland sites separately.
Numbers above bars indicate number of sites included. Asterisks indicate level of significance; (B) parasitemia level and parasite DNA quantity obtained by microscopy and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR), respectively, between lowland and highland samples. Numbers above bars indicate number of individuals included. The central box represents the interquartile range and the whiskers represent the first quartile and the fourth quartile of the data. The median is shown as a lien through the center of the box and the ends of the whiskers correspond to the minimum and maximum in the data.
Table 1.
Comparison of detective power between microscopy and conventional PCR (microsatellite PFPK2 assay) of all blood samples.
PCR was used as gold standard for diagnostic measures.
Fig 3.
Boxplots showing the amount of parasite DNA detected by SYBR quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) analysis of subset samples that were diagnosed as positive by conventional PCR.
Comparison of parasite DNA quantity was made between (1) microscopy positive and negative samples; and (2) lowland and highland samples. Numbers above bars indicate number of individuals included. The central box represents the interquartile range and the whiskers represent the first quartile and the fourth quartile of the data. The median is shown as a lien through the center of the box and the ends of the whiskers correspond to the minimum and maximum in the data.
Fig 4.
Scatter plot matrix showing correlation of estimates of parasite density obtained by microscopy and parasite DNA quantity by SYBR quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) analysis of blood samples.
Pearson’s product moment (r) correlation coefficients were indicated.
Fig 5.
Histogram showing the mean malaria prevalence rate of the three age groups (under 5, aged 5–14, and over 14) in the lowlands and highlands.
Error bars indicated the standard deviation of the mean value. The level of significance was indicated.