Rapid testing to revolutionise malaria treatment
Monday April 26th, 2010
More than a dozen tests for rapid diagnosis of malaria have been approved - enabling doctors to roll out treatments to the world's poorest communities, it has been announced.
World Health Organisation experts have approved a total of 16 tests and rejected 13 others.
WHO
has been keen that health workers diagnose the disease properly before
beginning treatment.
Its experts say that, without testing, children with fever may wrongly be treated for malaria when they have other diseases.
Details of the tests were released for World Malaria Day today.
Two years ago studies in 18 African countries found just 22 per cent of patients with suspected malaria were properly tested.
A WHO spokeswoman said: "Universal diagnosis would enable health workers to identify which patients with fever have malaria and need life-saving anti-malarial drugs, and which have other causes of illness and require alternative treatment."
The disease still kills 860,000 people a year and most of them are African children.
Dr Robert Newman, director of the WHO global malaria programme, said: "These rapid tests have been a major breakthrough in malaria control. They allow us to test people who cannot access diagnosis based on microscopy in remote, rural areas where the majority of malaria occurs."
A second report today says child deaths are falling from about 3,000 a day to 2,000 a day.
As well as better diagnosis and treatment, campaigns have concentrated on prevention using anti-mosquito nets.
The Rolling Back Malaria campaign called for six billion dollars to be spent on fighting the disease this year - about three times the cash available.
Tags: Africa | World Health
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