Automated parasistaemia quantification in mice infected with tripanozoma cruzi

Abstract

This paper presents a custom solution implementation to automate the calculation of the Trypanosoma cruzi parasites present in a blood smear. The process to determine parasitaemia, or parasites presence in the fresh drop sample, is performed by a software application developed with Python and OpenCV libraries having a Raspberry Pi board for execution environment with a digital camera connected for video capture from an optical microscope. The software implements image processing techniques and the algorithm was approved; allowing a considerable saving of time in the evaluated blood samples processing; increasing the accuracy of the parasite count. Additionally, a cloud multimedia database is integrated with the solution to store images, videos and data associated with parasitaemia results per each sample.