We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress hp
Sign In
Advertise with Us
LGC Clinical Diagnostics

Access Bio Inc

Access Bio is dedicated to the prevention and early diagnosis of infectious diseases through research, development, a... read more Featured Products: More products

Download Mobile App




Performance of Malaria Rapid Diagnostics Tests Evaluated Post-Treatment

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 19 Oct 2016
Print article
Image: The CareStart Malaria rapid diagnostic tests that diagnose malaria infection from whole blood of patients in 20 minutes (Photo courtesy of Access Bio).
Image: The CareStart Malaria rapid diagnostic tests that diagnose malaria infection from whole blood of patients in 20 minutes (Photo courtesy of Access Bio).
The performance of different malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) may be influenced by transmission intensity and by the length of time each test requires to become negative after treatment and patient’s recovery.

The number of different RDTs on the market has increased considerably over the past few years and most malaria RDTs are designed to detect a single parasite antigen, the histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) or the Plasmodium lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH), while others are designed to detect both antigens in a single test.

Scientists at the Epicentre Mbarara Research Centre (Uganda) recruited consecutively all children who presented to any of the participating health centers, were under five years of age, weighed 5 kg or more, and had a fever. Blood samples obtained by finger prick from children whose parent or guardian provided written consent were tested in parallel at the corresponding study health center with the three different RDTs and with microscopy. At each site, a sub-set of 212 children was selected for the time to become negative analysis.

The following RDTs were evaluated: SD Bioline Malaria Antigen P.f (HRP2) (Standard Diagnostic Inc, Suwon, South Korea), CareStart Malaria HRP2 (Pf), and CareStart Malaria pLDH (PAN) (Access Bio, Somerset, NJ, USA). For microscopy, thick and thin blood smears were prepared on the same slide and stained with a 10% Giemsa solution (pH 7.2) for 15 minutes. Reading was performed using a 100× magnification lens with oil immersion. Parasite density was estimated based on a hypothetical leukocyte density of 8,000 WBC/µL. The presence of gametocytes was recorded, although a slide with gametocytes but no asexual parasite forms was scored as negative.

The team reported that the median time to become negative was 35 and 42 days for the SD Bioline HRP2 in two different sites, and two days for the CareStart pLDH at both sites. For the CareStart HRP2 test, the median time could not be calculated because it exceeded 42 days, the maximum follow-up time for patients in the study. In the two settings, sensitivities ranged from 98.4% to 99.2% for the HRP2 tests and 94.7% to 96.1% for the pLDH test. Specificities were 98.9% and 98.8 % for the HRP2 tests and 99.7 % for the pLDH test in the low-transmission setting and 79.7%, 80.7% and 93.9 %, respectively, in the high-transmission setting.

The authors concluded that the ideal malaria RDT, a test that is both highly sensitive and highly specific in all epidemiological contexts is not yet available. A choice is to be made between an HPR2 test, with the risk of over diagnosing malaria and thereby overlooking other possible causes of fever, and using a pLDH test, which carries the risk of missing true malaria cases with low parasitemia. The study was published on October 4, 2016, in the Malaria Journal.

Related Links:
Epicentre Mbarara Research Centre
Standard Diagnostic
Access Bio
Gold Member
Serological Pipet Controller
PIPETBOY GENIUS
Verification Panels for Assay Development & QC
Seroconversion Panels
New
Uric Acid and Blood Glucose Meter
URIT-10
New
Silver Member
HPV Molecular Controls
ZeptoMetrix® HPV Type 16, 18, 45 & 68 Molecular Controls

Print article

Channels

Clinical Chemistry

view channel
Image: The tiny clay-based materials can be customized for a range of medical applications (Photo courtesy of Angira Roy and Sam O’Keefe)

‘Brilliantly Luminous’ Nanoscale Chemical Tool to Improve Disease Detection

Thousands of commercially available glowing molecules known as fluorophores are commonly used in medical imaging, disease detection, biomarker tagging, and chemical analysis. They are also integral in... Read more

Immunology

view channel
Image: The cancer stem cell test can accurately choose more effective treatments (Photo courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

Stem Cell Test Predicts Treatment Outcome for Patients with Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer frequently responds to chemotherapy initially, but eventually, the tumor develops resistance to the therapy, leading to regrowth. This resistance is partially due to the activation... Read more

Pathology

view channel
Image: The ready-to-use DUB enzyme assay kits accelerate routine DUB activity assays without compromising data quality (Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock)

Sensitive and Specific DUB Enzyme Assay Kits Require Minimal Setup Without Substrate Preparation

Ubiquitination and deubiquitination are two important physiological processes in the ubiquitin-proteasome system, responsible for protein degradation in cells. Deubiquitinating (DUB) enzymes contain around... Read more

Technology

view channel
Image: The HIV-1 self-testing chip will be capable of selectively detecting HIV in whole blood samples (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock)

Disposable Microchip Technology Could Selectively Detect HIV in Whole Blood Samples

As of the end of 2023, approximately 40 million people globally were living with HIV, and around 630,000 individuals died from AIDS-related illnesses that same year. Despite a substantial decline in deaths... Read more

Industry

view channel
Image: The collaboration aims to leverage Oxford Nanopore\'s sequencing platform and Cepheid\'s GeneXpert system to advance the field of sequencing for infectious diseases (Photo courtesy of Cepheid)

Cepheid and Oxford Nanopore Technologies Partner on Advancing Automated Sequencing-Based Solutions

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA), a leading molecular diagnostics company, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (Oxford, UK), the company behind a new generation of sequencing-based molecular analysis technologies,... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2025 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.