Abstract
BackgoundTreatment of confirmed malaria patients with Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) at remote areas is the goal of many anti-malaria programs. Introduction of effective and affordable malaria Rapid Diagnosis Test (RDT) in remote areas could be an alternative tool for malaria case management. This study aimed to assess performance of the OptiMAL dipstick for rapid malaria diagnosis in children under five.MethodsMalaria symptomatic and asymptomatic children were recruited in a passive manner in two community clinics (CCs). Malaria diagnosis by microscopy and RDT were performed. Performance of the tests was determined.ResultsRDT showed similar ability (61.2%) to accurately diagnose malaria as microscopy (61.1%). OptiMAL showed a high level of sensitivity and specificity, compared with microscopy, during both transmission seasons (high & low), with a sensitivity of 92.9% vs. 74.9% and a specificity of 77.2% vs. 87.5%.ConclusionBy improving the performance of the test through accurate and continuous quality control of the device in the field, OptiMAL could be suitable for use at CCs for the management and control of malaria.
Highlights
Despite trends toward a reduction in reported malaria cases in many epidemiological settings, malaria remains a public health problem in the majority of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
3, 219 visits were recorded in both clinics, with 62.4% of the visits registered during the malaria high transmission season and 37.6% during the low transmission season
Plasmodium indexes (P. falciparum, P. ovale and P. malariae) and densities of asexual stages were high during the intense malaria transmission season
Summary
Despite trends toward a reduction in reported malaria cases in many epidemiological settings, malaria remains a public health problem in the majority of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout this region, because of the unavailability of microscopy as a tool, clinical symptoms are used to diagnosis malaria when rapid diagnosis is required in order to avoid the dramatic deterioration often seen in malariavulnerable patients such as children under five years old. Studies of fever cases in populations [1,2,3]from several malaria-endemic countries, have found wide variations in the proportion of fevers which can truly be attributed to malaria. For efficient malaria case management at the rural level, an accurate, easy to use, and affordable malaria diagnostic tool is needed
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