Malaria continues to be a global public health problem. Microscopic examination of peripheral blood smear is the standard method for malaria diagnosis, which is available easily and has low cost but its reliability is questionable at low level of parasitaemia. The present study was undertaken to compare three different methods for diagnosis of malaria, i.e. peripheral blood smear and Antigen card test. In this study Peripheral blood smear (PBS), centrifuged buffy coat smear (CBS) and Antigen card test (RDT) were compared with each other taking peripheral blood smear as gold standard.  

Materials and Methods: The study was carried out over a 12 month period from January 2016 to December 2016. Blood samples (3-4 ml per patients) collected in EDTA vials from patients with clinical presentation of malaria were subjected to perform peripheral blood smear, buffy coat smear and rapid card test for the diagnosis of malaria then results were compared taking PBS as the gold standard.

Result: Out of 144 samples malaria was diagnosed in 53(36.80%), 69(47.91%) and 70(48.61%) by PBS, CBS and RDT respectively. The sensitivity of CBS and RDT was 76.81% and 75.71% respectively and specificity was 100%.

Conclusion: The development of easy, rapid and accurate test for the reliable detection of malaria infection is necessary. The centrifuged buffy coat smear technique fulfills most of these criteria and may be used at limited diagnostic source setup for low cost and reliable diagnosis of malaria.

Keywords: Malaria, Peripheral blood smear, Rapid card test.

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Praveen Kumar Gautam

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