Malaria Testing Lits

  • Malaria can start with a single mosquito bite; therefore, every community member needs to have access to personal protection from mosquitoes.

    This can be in the form of cost-effective mosquito repellents being made available locally, and each family member having a treated mosquito net to sleep under.

    Nevertheless, this is not the whole solution; those people who do contract malaria need fast access to efficient methods of identifying the type of malaria they have.

    The successful treatment of malaria is greatly improved if effective anti-malarial medicine can be given as early as possible. Delays due to overworked or under-resourced laboratories can cost lives.

    Over the years, Rapid Diagnostic Testing (RDT) kits that have been developed that are low cost, have up to 90% accuracy and can show within 30 minutes whether a person has Pf or another form of Malaria.

A patient suffering from malaria may present at a clinic seeking medical assistance. If microscopic testing is available at that clinic, a blood sample may be taken and sent to the laboratory for testing and identification. If inspection of a blood sample is not possible, RDTs are used.

Through the practical application of such testing kits, pressure can be taken away from hospital laboratories, and patients can be speedily diagnosed. This will save lives. Different variations of the RDT kits are manufactured in several countries.

Prices vary depending on the location; each single-use kit costs between $US0.67 to $US2.00.

These kits rely on a simple blood test that can be easily administered with minimal training. In under 30 minutes, the kit will confirm the presence of malaria. If malaria is found to be present, an appropriate treatment regime must be implemented as quickly as possible.

Most RDTs don't test for all strains of malaria, so using a kit suitable for a particular strain of malaria found in a region is essential.  For example, an RDT that recognises Pf malaria may not be able to detect Pv malaria.

Access to and using RDTs is vital to every malaria eradication program.

"Buzz Off encourages the use of rapid diagnostic testing kits"