Performance analysis of polymerase chain reaction in relation to rapid diagnostic test (RDT) kit (SD bio line malaria ag p.f (05fk50)) for malaria diagnosis

Malaria control and its elimination heavenly depend on successful and reliable diagnosis using recommended diagnostic techniques. These available techniques often have certain peculiarities and mode applications, thus making them have different levels of performance and accuracy. Therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of PCR in relation to Rapid Diagnostic Test Kit (SD Bio line Malaria Ag P.f (05fk50)) in malaria diagnosis. A total of 200 blood samples were collected from the consented study subjects using the vein puncture technique and analysed using PCR and RDTs. Plasmodium falcifarum’s DNA was extracted using Quick-DNA™ Miniprep Plus Kit with catalog number D4069. 18SrRNA gene of Plasmodium falciparum from chromosome 13 was amplified using the two primers. For the RDTs technique, the SD Bio line Malaria Ag P.f (05fk50) test kit was used. Malaria prevalence of 106(53.0%) and 132(66.0%) were recorded using PCR and RDTs respectively. The PCR demonstrates an overall accuracy of 0.53 with sensitivity and specificity values of 56.06 and 52.94% respectively. The negative and positive predictive values were 69.81 and 38.30% respectively. PCR demonstrated a good level of performance and is therefore recommended as an effective diagnostic tool for malaria, especially in patients where the parasite density/parasitaemia level is very low.