Abstrait

Evaluation of one step malaria Anti-P.f/P.v cassette test in detection of malaria parasite in febrile patients.

Khadiga Ahmed Ismail*

Malaria in hypoendemic area like Saudi Arabia presents a diagnostic challenge to laboratories. As the effect of war population migration from endemic area contribute to presenting the laboratory with diagnostic problems for which it may have little expertise available. This study was aimed to compare the accuracy of malaria Rapid Diagnostic antibody Tests, One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/ P.v Cassette Test with the microscopic examination as the gold standard. Between January 2015 to January 2018 blood samples were collected from 100 patients, attending the internal medicine department at King Abdelaziz specialized hospital at Taif, Saudi Arabia. Microscopy and One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/P.v Cassette Test were done and the accuracy was evaluated. In this study detected 45 (45%) malaria positive slides, while 42 (42%) positive samples were detected with One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/P.v Cassette Test. One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/P.v Cassette Test sensitivity (85.1%), specificity (92.4%), positive predictive value (90.4%), negative predictive value (88.4%) and diagnostic accuracy (89.1%). One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/P.v Cassette Test is considered one of the options in health areas especially with limited laboratory services despite the problems related to their diagnostic accuracy. However, this study showed that the accuracy of One Step Malaria Anti-P.f/P.v Cassette Test is not always satisfactory when performed in clinical laboratories and must confirmed with other tests.