Analysis of nucleic acids extracted from rapid diagnostic tests reveals a significant proportion of false positive test results associated with recent malaria treatment.

Background: Surveillance programmes often use malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to determine the proportion of the population carrying parasites in their peripheral blood to assess the malaria transmission intensity. Despite an increasing number of reports on false-negative and false-positive RDT results, there is a lack of systematic quality control activities for RDTs deployed in malaria surveillance programmes.

Methods: The diagnostic performance of field-deployed RDTs used for malaria surveys was assessed by retrospective molecular analysis of the blood retained on the tests.

Genomic Surveillance Enables the Identification of Co-infections With Multiple SARS-CoV-2 Lineages in Equatorial Guinea.

COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 represents an ongoing global public health emergency. Rapid identification of emergence, evolution, and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) would enable timely and tailored responses by public health decision-making bodies. Yet, global disparities in current SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance activities reveal serious geographical gaps.