Malaria Prevalence and Diagnostic Accuracy of Rapid Diagnostic Tests Versus Microscopy in Children (1–15 Years) in Cite Verte Health District, Cameroon

Author(s): Takamo Peter, Baiye Williams Abange, Fankoua Tchaptchet Luc Baudoin, Elvis Asangbeng Tanue, Ntumwil Thomas Toah, Ghislain Dema, Aboudou Mbom Marie-Ange, Enoh Junior Enoh, Babilla Isabelle Becky Nagwah, Arole Darwin Touko, Tanyi pride Bobga, Abdel Jelil Njouendou

Background: Malaria is a life threatening disease caused by Plasmodium parasites which are transmitted through the bite of and infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria is one of the serious public health issues and causes of morbidity and mortality including suffering in tropical and sub-tropical regions. This study aims to determine Malaria Prevalence and Diagnostic Accuracy of Rapid Diagnostic Tests Versus Microscopy in Children (1–15 Years) in Cite Verte Health District.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 150 children aged 1-15 years who were chosen using convenient sampling technique. Descriptive statistics was used to present the frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. The chi-square test of independence was also used to show statistical significance. The Sensitivity, specificity, positive, negative predictive value was used to compare microscopy and RDT.

Results: Participants mean age was 5.5 years (SD = 4.4). Malaria prevalence in children was 24% using the gold standard technique (Microscopy) and 16.7% using RDT. The Microscopy test results had a significant agreement with RDTs (kappa = 0.776, p=0.001) indicating RDTs could serve as a reliable alternative to microscopy when diagnosing malaria. The RDT had very high specificity (100%) and an ideal positive predictive value (PPV=100%), as indicated by the fact that all the positive tests had no errors in determining malaria. It however, did not detect 30.6% of the actual malaria cases (sensitivity = 69.4%). In general, it identified 92.7% of the cases correctly.

Conclusion: The malaria prevalence rate in this study reflects the heavy burden of malaria in the urban area. These results also highlight the strength of RDTs as a fast diagnostic test in limited resources settings especially in positive cases confirmation, and the importance of microscopy in identifying false-negative cases in symptomatic children.