search
for
 About Bioline  All Journals  Testimonials  Membership  News


Tanzania Journal of Health Research
Health User's Trust Fund (HRUTF)
ISSN: 1821-6404
Vol. 15, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1-9
Bioline Code: th13008
Full paper language: English
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge

Tanzania Journal of Health Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1-9

 en Reducing microscopy-based malaria misdiagnosis in a low-resource area of Tanzania
ALLEN, LISA K.; HATFIELD, JENNIFER M. & MANYAMA, MANGE J.

Abstract

Misdiagnosis of malaria is a major problem in Africa leading not only to incorrect individual level treatment, but potentially the acceleration of the spread of drug resistance in low-transmission areas. In this paper we report on the outcomes of a simple intervention that utilized a social entrepreneurship approach (SEA) to reduce misdiagnosis associated with hospital-based microscopy of malaria in a lowtransmission area of rural Tanzania. A pre-post assessment was conducted on patients presenting to the hospital outpatient department with malaria and non-malaria like symptoms in January 2009 (preintervention) and June 2009 (post-intervention). All participants were asked a health seeking behavior questionnaire and blood samples were taken for local and quality control microscopy. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to determine magnitude of misdiagnosis with local microscopy pre- versus- post intervention. Local microscopy pre-intervention specificity was 29.5% (95% CI = 21.6% – 38.4%) whereas the post intervention specificity was 68.6% (95% CI = 60.2% - 76.2%). Both pre and post intervention sensitivity were difficult to determine due to an unexpected low number of true positive cases. The proportion of participants misdiagnosed pre-intervention was 70.2% (95%CI = 61.3%-78.0%) as compared to 30.6% (95%CI = 23.2%–38.8%) post-intervention. This resulted in a 39.6% reduction in misdiagnosis of malaria at the local hospital. The magnitude of misdiagnosis for the pre-intervention participants was 5.3 (95%CI = 3.1–9.3) that of the post-intervention participants. In conclusion, this study provides evidence that a simple intervention can meaningfully reduce the magnitude of microscopy-based misdiagnosis of malaria for those individuals seeking treatment for uncomplicated malaria. We anticipate that this intervention will facilitate a valuable and sustainable change in malaria diagnosis at the local hospital.

Keywords
malaria; microscopy; misdiagnosis; Tanzania

 
© Copyright 2013 - Tanzania Journal of Health Research

Home Faq Resources Email Bioline
© Bioline International, 1989 - 2024, Site last up-dated on 01-Sep-2022.
Site created and maintained by the Reference Center on Environmental Information, CRIA, Brazil
System hosted by the Google Cloud Platform, GCP, Brazil