The findings from this study suggest that the Deki Reader™ is comparable to visual inspection and performs well in detecting microscopy-positive Plasmodium falciparum cases in a household survey setting.
Measures of malaria prevalence estimated using population RDT positivity should be interpreted in the context of potentially large variation in RDT LODs between, and even within, surveys.
Results from this analysis can be used to direct national and well as cross-border targeting of interventions, over space, time and by sub-population.
Malaria CareStart™RDT test demonstrated a superior sensitivity compared to microscopy, which is the gold standard for malaria diagnosis.
This study is the first to document the high prevalence of submicroscopic malaria infections among pregnant women in Haiti and identify social and behavioural risk factors for disease transmission.
This study recommends that the policy of malaria diagnosis be changed such that the routine diagnosis of malaria is done by a combination of both microscopy and a RDT kit of high sensitivity and specificity so as to complement the errors associated with either of the methods.
A combination of RDT, light microscopy and PCR diagnostics were used to identify asymptomatic malaria infection, providing additional information on asymptomatic cases in addition to the routine statistics on symptomatic cases, so as to determine the true burden of disease in the area.
The investigation confirmed high false-negativity rate in PfHRP-2 detecting RDTs and has ruled out quality of RDTs, storage, handling and operator error as causes of the reported problem.
Trained and supervised ADDO dispensers in rural Tanzania performed and sold RDTs under real market conditions to two-thirds of suspected malaria patients during this one-year pilot.
Test-based malaria treatment is cost-beneficial for pharmacy practitioners.
