Abstract
Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in Africa, and it is highly endemic in Nigeria. It is responsible for about 70% of out-patient attendance at secondary health care facilities in Lagos State. This study assessed the diagnostic performance of three malaria detection methods among Nigerian airport workers. 268 blood samples were collected from febrile and non-febrile Airport workers in Lagos, and processed using three diagnostic methods: thick and thin Giemsa blood stained microscopy method for parasite species identification and count; SD-Bioline PfLDH/panLDH rapid diagnostic test (RDT) device; and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification as a two step procedure using dried blood spot (DBS). A total prevalence of 2.6% was detected by microscopy, 4.1% by RDT and 4.9% by PCR. Microscopy parasite density is 22 to 5.837/µl at prevalence rate of 4.9%. The species identified were 69% Plasmodium falciparum and 31% Plasmodium malariae, while P. falciparum and P. malariae co-infections were observed. The performance evaluation shows PCR having 100% sensitivity while microscopy and RDT had 53.8 and 84.6%, respectively. The negative predictive values are 97.8, 99.3 and 100% for microscopy, RDT and PCR respectively. The result of the PCR and RDT methods indicated that the gold standard method (microscopy) is less sensitive because additional 2.3% positive cases were detected by the PCR method
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