Performance of Rapid Diagnosis Technique (RDT) in Screening Malaria Among Patients of Selected Health Facilities in Ardo-Kola Local Government Area, Taraba State

Abstract

Malaria infection is one of the most common disease of public health importance afflicting millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria diagnosis and surveillance rely predominantly on rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). This study investigated the performance of Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) against microscopy of stained blood for Plasmodium falciparum of patients attending some Primary Health Centres in Ardo-Kola LGA, Taraba State. Five hundred and eighty five (585) blood samples were collected and examined for Plasmodium falciparum on the microscope. Rapid Diagnostic Tests were also used for examination. The overall result showed a prevalence of 446 (76.23%). The infection found female, 199 (82.23%) to be more exposed to malaria than male, 247 (72.01%) with no significant difference (χ 2 =4.381; P≥0.05). With regards to age, females aged ≥51 years were more infected than other age groups, while male aged 21-30 years were more infected with malaria than the other age groups. There was no significant difference with malaria infection between the age groups (χ 2 =2.207; P≥0.05). The performance of RDTs against microscopy showed that RDT used had a sensitivity of 66.91% and specificity of 58.52%. The positive predictive value of 33.45% and negative predictive value of 85.02% were found for the RDT used. The present study demonstrated that RDTs can act as diagnostic tool to manage malaria in resource poor settings with limited, access to expert microscopy as they are easy to use and perform better than microscopy. It is recommended that malaria Rapid Diagnosis Tests can be used in endemic areas in Nigeria.