Background: Malaria is a life-threatening disease. Prior to the pandemic, over a million people annually from non-endemic, high income countries such as Europe and North America visited countries with a risk of malaria transmission. Emergency care nurses in non-endemic countries frequently encounter returning travellers, presenting with symptoms suggestive of malaria. While rapid diagnostic tests are used in countries with endemic malaria, in countries such as the United Kingdom diagnosis is undertaken by microscopy and three negative tests are required to exclude.
Question: Are rapid diagnostic tests effective for diagnosing imported malaria in non-endemic, high income countries?
Method: A systematic review of published research (January 2009 - November 2020) comparing rapid diagnostic tests with microscopy.
Results: Fourteen studies were included, conducted in five countries with 14 different RDTs evaluated. Mean sensitivity and specificity for Plasmodium Falciparum was 91.8% and 97.7% and Plasmodium Vivax 81.6% and 99.2%. Higher sensitivities were related to higher parasite densities.
Conclusions: International travel will return post-pandemic and rapid, accurate and cost-efficient tests will be required. The rapid diagnostic tests in these studies showed significant variation and were not as accurate as microscopy. Consequently, it cannot be recommended that rapid diagnostic tests replace the gold standard of microscopy. Further research is required.
Keywords: Diagnostic tests; Emergency services; Hospital; Malaria; Microscopy; Non-endemic; Routine; Systematic review.
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