PREVALENCE OF MALARIA USING TWO RAPID DIAGNOSTIC TEST KIT IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF MALARIA IN GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

This study aims at evaluating the comparative diagnostic efficiencies of two commercially available kits in relation to microscopy in detecting Plasmodium falciparum HRP-2, a polyhistidine antigen in urine and blood of febrile patients for malaria diagnosis along with blood based RDTs. 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 in the outpatient clinic of Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, Gombe state North Eastern Nigeria  were enrolled who presented with fever (≥37.5°C). 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 RDTs. With the blood smear microscopy as standard, the disease prevalence was 68.4% and sensitivity for the UMT and SD Bio line (Blood RDT) was 70.1% respectively. The RDT had a specificity of 96.3% as well as the positive and negative predictive values were 97.6% and 59.7% respectively. The rapid diagnostic kits showed moderate level of sensitivity compared with blood smear microscopy as they show considerable acceptable levels in the diagnosis of malaria.