Rapid Test for Malaria

Malaria is a serious disease that ravages this continent of Africa. Every single day there are THOUSANDS of people dying from Malaria. The illness is not easily diagnosed as it symptoms can be found in many other diseases. Besides a thorough clinical examination by a doctor we have now small Rapid Tests that help us with the diagnosis and decision of treatment of Malaria Falciparum (the potential deadly kind if left untreated and the most prevalent in Burkina Faso).

 There are some inherent difficulties in the usages of these tests which results in a false positiveness of the test, which means that sometimes this test indicates that a person would have malaria when he or she hasn't. This results in some cases e.g. children being treated for malaria, while they are actually suffering and dying from other diseases which are left untreated. The easiness of use and affordability/popularity of these tests left in hands of not fully trained people can result in life threathening situations, especially in children.

We do use these tests during our mobile clinics and we want to make sure that the doctors can make a evidence based decision when to treat and when not. The test can help with that on the condition it is used following strict protocols. Our research helps us to define these protocols.