| dc.description.abstract | Recent introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests, have been a welcome move in the diagnosis of malaria, because they are simple to use and allow for a much faster point of care diagnostic than microscopy, especially in busy clinic and community. However, there had been anecdotal reports of misdiagnosis for malaria, using carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria rapid diagnostic test kits implying inaccurate data submitted to the national governments, consequently affecting the process of the fight against malaria. Aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria rapid diagnostic kits for testing malaria infection among the under five children in Siaya County, Kenya .. The specific objectives were: To evaluate the Sensitivity and specificity of carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits and Microscopy among children under five years in Siaya County. To determine the prevalence of Plasmodium species using microscopy, among children under five years in Siaya County. To determine sources of en-ors in diagnosis using carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria rapid diagnostic test kit compared to microscopy. To determine the threshold quantity of parasitemea using microscopy that can be detected by carestarti'" (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test. This was a hospital based cross-sectional, descriptive and experimental study. Study was done at Siaya County Referral Hospital, Ng'iya Dispensary, Ting'wang'i Health Centre and Nyang'oma K'Ogelo Health Centre in Siaya County. Study population were children below the age of 5 years attending the above selected health facilities in Siaya County. Of the 333 samples from which RDT tests were performed, the results showed that 105 children blood samples were both microscopic and RDT positive while 3 were microscopic positive but RDT negative. On the other hand, among the 225 samples under microscopy negative, 126 children were RDT positive while 99 were RDT negative. The Carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) RDT sensitivity and specificity were 97.30% and 64.10% respectively. The positive and negative predictive values were 46.15 % and 1.32 % respectively. Three levels of parasitemea detected by microscopy at 16~t/l, 23 µ/1 and 48 ~Lil were not detected positive for malaria when the sai~les were run by carestart™ (HRP-2 Monoclonal) RDT, suggesting that carestartT (HRP-2 Monoclonal) mRDT can only detect parasitemea of 50~t/l and above detected by microscopy. Kenyan Ministry of Health should introduce rapid diagnostic test that can detect all species of malaria and not only the available carestart™ (HRP-2 monoclonal) malaria rapid diagnostic test that detects Plasmodium falciparum only, as this could lead to false negative results. | en_US |