Assessing the daily natural history of asymptomatic Plasmodium infections in adults and older children in Katakwi, Uganda: a longitudinal cohort study.

Background: Low-density asymptomatic Plasmodium infections are prevalent in endemic areas, but little is known about their natural history. The trajectories of these infections and their propensity to fluctuate to undetectable densities can affect detection in clinical trials and field studies. We aimed to classify the natural history of these infections in a high transmission area over 29 days.

Feasibility of community at-home dried blood spot collection combined with pooled reverse transcription PCR as a viable and convenient method for malaria epidemiology studies.

Background: Many Plasmodium infections in endemic regions exist at densities below the limit of detection of standard diagnostic tools. These infections threaten control efforts and may impact vaccine and therapeutic drug studies. Simple, cost-effective methods are needed to study the natural history of asymptomatic submicroscopic parasitaemia.

Using the Ultrasensitive Alere Plasmodium falciparum Malaria Ag HRP-2 Rapid Diagnostic Test in the Field and Clinic in Northeastern Uganda.

The ultrasensitive Alere Malaria Ag histidine-rich protein 2 rapid diagnostic test (Alere uRDT, Suwon City, South Korea) is a new diagnostic tool which is more expensive than other malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) routinely used in Ugandan clinics. The manufacturer recommends testing samples within 2 days and scoring results after 20 minutes, which may be impractical in high-volume resource-poor clinics. We compared testing by the Alere Ag rapid diagnostic test (uRDT), CareStart RDT, microscopy, and an ultrasensitive I8S rRNA quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) using survey and clinical samples.