Comparative analysis of two rapid diagnostic tests for diagnosis of malaria in children, Gombe, north-east Nigeria

Abstract

This study aims at comparing the diagnostic efficiencies of two commercially available kits for detecting Plasmodium falciparum infection in urine and blood of febrile patients for malaria diagnosis. This was an observational study in which matched blood and urine from symptomatic patients were tested for malaria using two rapid tests, with microscopy as gold standard. This was carried out in the pediatric clinic of Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, North-east Nigeria were children enrolled who presented with fever (≥ 37.5^oC). Thick films were prepared, stained and examined for malaria parasite under the microscope using the oil immersion objective while urine samples as well as blood were taken and immediately tested using Rapid Diagnostic Tests. With the blood smear microscopy as standard, the disease prevalence was 64% and sensitivity for both the UMT and SD Bio line (Blood RDT) was 85.7% respectively. However the diagnostic efficiency of this two test showed an 86.4% for UMT and 81.8% for SD-Bioline RDTs while the UMT had a specificity of 87.5% and 75% for SD Bio-line as well as the positive and negative predictive values were 92.3%, 85.7% and 77.8%, 75% respectively.These rapid diagnostic kits showed moderate level of sensitivity (85.7%) compared with blood smear microscopy (100%) as they show considerable acceptable levels above 80% in the effective diagnosis of malaria.

Keywords: Diagnostic kits; Plasmodium falciparum; pediatric; prevalence; microscopy