Abstract

Dr. Bhupendra Kumar Mandawat and Dr. Preetam Singh Mandawat*

ABSTRACT

Background: Malaria is a serious, sometimes fatal, parasitic disease characterized by fever, chills, and anemia and is caused by a parasite that is transmitted from one human to another by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. At present, malaria is diagnosed microscopically by looking for the parasites in a drop of blood. The Global Malaria Program recommends that suspected clinical malaria could be confirmed using the quality assured Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) and Microscopy diagnostic tools. For proper diagnosis of infection as well as disease management and prevention, identification of appropriate test kit is necessary. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare Rapid Card Test with Gold standard Microscopy for the detection of Plasmodium species. The ultimate goal of this study was to recommend most reliable and cost-effective rapid card test for the diagnosis of Plasmodium species in areas where advance diagnostic facilities are not available. Methodology: The present study was conducted in the clinical laboratory of NMCH at Govt, Medical College, Kota from period of 1st January, 2018 to 31th December 2018 to comparative evaluate the detection of Plasmodium species by rapid diagnostic tests and Microscopy method. Result: In our study, total no. of 20466 samples was tested for suspected Malaria (Plasmodium species) by Microscopy method (gold standard) as a confirmatory methodand rapid test kits. On testing for 20466 samples, 48 samples were reactive by Microscopy but only 46 were reactive in Rapid test. Results by microscopy show that up to 0.3% (34/11460) of the males and 0.15% (14/9006) of the females were infected. With microscopy as the standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of RDT were; 95.83%, 100%, 100% and 99.99% respectively. Out of 20466 samples, 37 samples and 11 samples were positive for P. vivax and P. falciparum species respectively. Conclusion: For proper diagnosis of infection as well as disease management and prevention, identification of appropriate test kit is necessary. The RDT’s sensitivity and specificity is comparable with microscopy. These rapid kits are cheaper and easy to perform and their use should be encouraged at rural settings. Microscopy is much more sensitive than rapid tests for screening of infections like Malaria.