Predictive Performance of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Falciparum Malaria and Its Modeled Impact on Integrated Community Case Management of Malaria in Sub-Saharan African Febrile Children.
Clin Infect Dis
; 73(5): e1158-e1167, 2021 09 07.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33506270
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Integrated community case management (iCCM) of malaria complements public health services to improve access to timely diagnosis and treatment of malaria. ICCM relies on standardized test-and-treat algorithms implemented by community health workers using malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). However, due to a changing epidemiology of fever causes in Africa, positive RDT results might not correctly reflect malaria. In this study, we modeled diagnostic predictive values for all malaria-endemic African regions as an indicator of the programmatic usefulness of RDTs in iCCM campaigns on malaria.METHODS:
Positive predictive values (PPVs) and negative predictive values (NPVs) of RDTs for clinical malaria were modeled. Assay-specific performance characteristics stem from the Cochrane Library and data on the proportion of malaria-attributable fevers among African febrile children aged <5 years were used as prevalence matrix.RESULTS:
Average country-level PPVs vary considerably. Ethiopia had the lowest PPVs (histidine-rich protein II [HRP2] assay, 17.35%; parasite lactate dehydrogenase [pLDH] assay, 39.73%), and Guinea had the highest PPVs (HRP2 assay, 95.32%; pLDH assay, 98.46%). On the contrary, NPVs were above 90% in all countries (HRP2 assay, ≥94.87%; pLDH assay, ≥93.36%).CONCLUSIONS:
PPVs differed considerably within Africa when used to screen febrile children, indicating unfavorable performance of RDT-based test-and-treat algorithms in low-PPV settings. This suggests that the administration of antimalarials alone may not constitute causal treatment in the presence of a positive RDT result for a substantial proportion of patients, particularly in low-PPV settings. Therefore, current iCCM algorithms should be complemented by information on other setting-specific major causes of fever.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Malaria Falciparum
/
Malaria
Tipo de estudio:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Child
/
Humans
País/Región como asunto:
Africa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Clin Infect Dis
Asunto de la revista:
DOENCAS TRANSMISSIVEIS
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Alemania