A well person with with no active malaria ,Would they not be positive as well for Rapid Kit testing for Malaria in endemics countries?
In malaria endemic zones, most immunological normal people would maintain concomitant immunity and thus would test positive to a rapid kit although they have no active disease. The implication will be high rates of positivity which may not be useful for any profitable action
In INDIA , for endemic zone - Flacivax is used for testing malaria (manufactured by zephyr biochemical ).
They may be positive to malaria using Rapid Kit testing, since the parasites may be present in their body, but due to immunity developed as a result of previous infections, the person may look well.
The use of kits in routine case management will still be useful as opposed to community mass screening which might be less cost effective.if applied
Asymptomatic parasitemia will test positive. A completely treated patient of p.falciparum malaria will also be positive for hrp2 for next few weeks and thus causing confusion for the treatment. However ldh based kits maybe more useful.
Yes, I do support the answer from Kochar. False positive RDT tests are most probably due to hrp2, few weeks after total clearance of parasitemia. False negative in symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals is another point which is mainly due to parasitemia below 200 parasites/ul.
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