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I'm a busy Mum and a Biomedical Scientist in Haematology. My particular interest is in blood cell morphology and parasitology, where I never stop learning.

Monday 9 November 2020

Survey 2004RD: Rapid Diagnostic Techniques for Malaria

Survey 2004RD: Rapid Diagnostic Techniques for Malaria Date 9/11/20 

The November 2020, RDT survey directs partcipants to read the Malaria rapid diagnostic test performance. Results of WHO product testing of malaria RDTs: round 8 (2016-2018). This can be found at https://www.who.int/malaria/publications/atoz/9789241514965/en/ 

The document gives an overview of findings from rounds 5-8 of Malaria RDT product testing. This is a good guide for laboratories on choosing an RDT kit that is likely to perform to a high a standard The document gives in detail how these RDT kits were evaluated. A simple summary is given in this flowchart.
Kits were assessed based on the following: -sensitivity, to detect nearly all clinically significant cases of malaria; - specificity, to accurately discriminate non-malarial febrile illness from malaria in order to ensure appropriate management and accurate disease monitoring; - stability, to maintain accuracy after transport and storage in ambient conditions; and - ease of use and adequate labelling and instructions for use to ensure safe, correct preparation and accurate interpretation of results.

The results are too extensive to document here, but I will be looking at my own laboratory kit and comparing it’s performance to others on the market, based on these findings.

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