Performance appraisal of rapid on-site malaria diagnosis (ICT malaria Pf/ Pv test) in relation to human resources at village level in Myanmar

Abstract

Logistic, economic and technical factors limit rapid access to microscopic confirmation of symptomatic diagnosis of malaria in many rural areas in endemic countries such as Myanmar. A study was conducted to evaluate a rapid on-site immunochromatographic test (ICT Malaria Pf/ Pv) for detection of Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax in two villages in the Taikkyi region of Myanmar. The ICT Malaria tests were performed by a volunteer health worker (VHW) in Yae-Aye-San village and by a professionally trained midwife (MW) in Kankone village. A total of 1000 symptomatic patients participated in the study by providing blood samples for an ICT test and for microscopy. The ICT performance indices, relative to microscopy, were better for the trained MW compared with the less experienced VHW. For P. falciparum and/or P. vivax infections, the sensitivities were 82.7% for the VHW compared with 93.7% for the MW. For P. falciparum infections, the sensitivities were 82.2% for the VHW and 91.3% for the MW, while the corresponding values for P. vivax infections were 66.7 and 79%, respectively. Although the test kit appeared to perform better in more experienced hands, this study questions whether this difference is related to the use of the ICT Malaria Pf/ Pv test kit, or related to other factors such as differences in the quality of blood slides prepared by the VHW and MW for microscopic examination. Overall, the results suggest that a rapid diagnostic assay such as the ICT Malaria Pf/ Pv test kit can be used in rural settings by relatively inexperienced persons, such as VHWs, with a reasonable degree of sensitivity, thus providing on-site confirmation of symptomatic diagnosis of malaria.