Role of Rapid diagnostic Tests for guiding therapy in partially treated malaria patients

Malaria is one of the major public health problems worldwide. Diagnosis of malaria by microscopy and/or rapid antigen detection test is the standard practice all over world. In endemic areas, many rely on clinical or self-diagnosis and start the antimalarial treatment without a definite microbiological diagnosis. These patients with incomplete treatment may pose a challenge to clinician and microbiologist alike.

A total of 62 patients with history of incomplete treatment and clinically diagnosed as malaria were included in this study. Microbiological diagnosis of malaria is arried out by microscopy of the peripheral thin smear by giemsa stain and rapid antigen detection test (RDT).

All the blood samples were positive (62/62) by RDT, whereas 40 exhibited presence of malaria parasites by microscopy. 22 samples were negative for parasitic forms irrespective of the test band intensity in RDT.

In developing countries like India, where malaria is endemic self-diagnosis and self-medication is a common practice. RDT found to be better tool for the confirmation of malaria diagnosis for the patients with incomplete antimalarial treatment history compared to microscopy.