Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 17360871
Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 2007 Mar;76(3):481-5
Field and laboratory studies were carried out in October and November 2005 to provide a comparative evaluation of the performance of three rapid malaria detection tests, two of which were recently introduced (the CareStart Malaria test and the SD Malaria Antigen Bioline test) and the well-known OptiMAL-IT test. Compared with microscopy, the sensitivity of the three tests to detect Plasmodium falciparum malaria was 97% for the CareStart Malaria test, 89.4% for the SD Malaria Antigen Bioline test, and 92.6% for the OptiMAL-IT test. The three tests were less sensitive in detecting non-P. falciparum infections, and the sensitivity decreased at levels of parasitemia<or=500 parasites/microL for P. falciparum andor=100 parasites/microL.