Malaria rapid diagnostic tests reliably detect asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infections in school-aged children that are infectious to mosquitoes

Table 3 Results of DMFAs and positive predictive value for oocyst-infected mosquitoes per diagnostic method

Diagnostics	DMFAs resulting in mosquito infection^a		Proportion of oocyst-infected mosquitoes^b		Positive predictive value^c
Diagnostics	n/N	% (95% CI)	n/N	% (95% CI)	% (n/qPCR)
qPCR
Plasmodium falciparum (PlasQ)	15/48	31.2 (19.9–45.3)	297/1610	18.4 (16.6–20.4)	100 (297/297)
mRDT
P. falciparum	9/31	29.0 (16.1–46.5)	282/1005	28.1 (25.3–30.9)	95.0 (282/297)
LM
P. falciparum asexuals only	3/10	30 (10.8–60.3)	18/391	4.6 (2.9–7.1)	6.1 (18/297)
P. falciparum gametocytes	5/6	83.3 (43.6–96.9)	232/643	36.0 (32.5–39.9)	78.1 (232/297)
P. falciparum all stages	8/16	50 (27.9–72)	250/930	26.8 (24.0–29.8)	84.2 (250/297)
RT-qPCR
P. falciparum female gametocytes (pfs25)	15/31	48.4 (32.0–65.1)	297/1610	18.4 (16.6–20.4)	100 (297/297)

qPCR quantitative polymerase chain reaction; mRDT malaria rapid diagnostic test; LM light microscopy; RT-qPCR reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction; DMFA direct membrane feeding assay
^aAll 48 participants enrolled for DMFAs were qPCR positive for P. falciparum; n/N is the proportion of DMFAs resulting in at least one infected mosquito (n) out of all infections detected by the corresponding diagnostic method (N)
^bProportion of mosquitoes scored positive by microscopy for oocysts on day 8 post-infection (n) out of total mosquitoes dissected of all DMFAs that resulted in at least one infected mosquito with the corresponding diagnostic method (N)
^cPositive predictive value for infected mosquitoes by diagnostic method compared to qPCR, which predicted 100% of all infected mosquitoes resulting from DMFAs

ISSN: 1756-3305