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Afr J Prim Health Care Fam Med. 2020 Jun 17;12(1):e1-e8. doi: 10.4102/phcfm.v12i1.2212.

Sensitivity and specificity of malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT CareStatTM) compared with microscopy amongst under five children attending a primary care clinic in southern Nigeria.

African journal of primary health care & family medicine

Oluwagbenga Ogunfowokan, Bamidele A Ogunfowokan, Anthony I Nwajei

Affiliations

  1. Lincoln University College, Selangor. [email protected].

PMID: 32634015 PMCID: PMC7380062 DOI: 10.4102/phcfm.v12i1.2212

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Malaria diagnosis using microscopy is currently the gold standard. However, malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDTs) were developed to simplify the diagnosis in regions without access to functional microscopy.

AIM: The objective of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of mRDT CareStatTM with microscopy.

SETTING: This study was conducted in the paediatric primary care clinic of the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Nigeria.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study for diagnostic accuracy was conducted from May 2016 to October 2016. Ninety-eight participants were involved to obtain a precision of 5%, sensitivity of mRDT CareStatTM of 95% from published work and 95% level of confidence after adjusting for 20% non-response rate or missing data. Consecutive participants were tested using both microscopy and mRDT. The results were analysed using EPI Info Version 7.

RESULTS: A total of 98 children aged 3-59 months were enrolled. Malaria prevalence was found to be 53% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 46% - 60%), whilst sensitivity and specificity were 29% (95% CI = 20% - 38%) and 89% (95% CI = 83% - 95%), respectively. The positive and negative predictive values were 75% (95% CI = 66.4% - 83.6%) and 53% (95% CI = 46% - 60%), respectively.

CONCLUSION: Agreement between malaria parasitaemia using microscopy and mRDT positivity increased with increase in the parasite density. The mRDT might be negative when malaria parasite density using microscopy is low.

Keywords: education; family medicine; mRDT; parasite density; primary care; sensitivity; specificity

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