Administering primaquine (PQ) to treat malaria patients with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency can pose a serious risk of drug-induced hemolysis (DIH). New easy to use point-of-care rapid diagnostic tests are being developed as an alternative to labor-intensive spectrophotometric methods, but they require field testing before they can be used at scale. This study screened 456 participants in Gressier, Haiti using the Access Bio CareStart qualitative G6PD rapid detection test compared with the laboratory-based Trinity Biotech quantitative spectrophotometric assay. Findings suggest that the CareStart test was 90% sensitive for detecting individuals with severe deficiency and 84.8% sensitive for detecting individuals with moderate and severe deficiency compared with the Trinity Biotech assay. A high negative predictive value of 98.2% indicates excellent performance in determining those patients able to take PQ safely. The CareStart G6PD test holds much value for screening malaria patients to determine eligibility for PQ therapy.
© The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.