RESEARCH Accuracy of malaria rapid t

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Despite the efforts engaged in control, malaria remains a major concern for the public health, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The hope to control malaria was hampered by spread of resistance to anti-malarial drugs. Irrational anti-malarial drug use contributed to the selection of drug resistant strains [1]. The spread of resistance to the cheap first-line treatment (chloroquine, sulphadoxine-pyrimeta-mine) led endemic countries to adopt efficacious and more expensive artemisinin-based combination threrapy (ACT). To delay the spread of resistance to ACT, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended prompt parasitological confirmation prior to malaria treat-ment [2-4]. Parasitological confirmation is crucial because presumptive treatment based on clinical diagnosis, results in thousands of inappropriate treatments. This has not only economic consequences, but increases anti-malarial drug pressure and delays specific non-malaria treatmen