Performance and accuracy of SD Bioline malaria Ag P.f (05fk50) in relation to microscopy as the gold standard technique for malaria diagnosis

Abstract

Successful malaria diagnosis is the mainstay of successful treatment, prevention and eradication of malaria infection. Apart from the gold standard technique (Microscopy), numerous diagnostic techniques perform a similar function to microscopy and in most cases tend to have varying sensitivity and specificity, especially when compared with the gold standard technique. Therefore this study aimed to determine the Performance and accuracy of SD Bioline Malaria Ag P.f (05fk50) (Rapid Diagnostic Test kit) to Gold standard (Microscopy). A total of two hundred (200) samples were collected from the consented study subjects and analyzed using RDT and Giemsa staining technique. The result revealed an overall prevalence of 132(66.0%) and 167(83.5%) respectively by RDT and Microscopy, where 115 (57.5%) were true positive, there was no significant difference between the two techniques (P> 0.05, df= 1, χ 2 = 3.695). The RDT recorded a sensitivity and specificity value of 68.86% and 48.48% respectively with a positive predictive value of 87.78% and a negative predictive value of 23.53%. The RDT recorded an overall accuracy of 0.66. The Rapid Diagnostic test kit used in the present demonstrated a high level of sensitivity and positive predictive value with relatively low specificity and negative predictive value. Regular checks on the Performance and accuracy of all brands of RDT should be conducted as their performance can be easily affected by some intrinsic and extrinsic factors.