ArticleMalaria journal2016
The complexities of simple technologies: re-imagining the role of rapid diagnostic tests in malaria control efforts.
Article in Malaria journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rapid molecular tests for tuberculosis and tuberculosis drug resistance: a qualitative evidence synthesis of recipient and provider views.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Health workers' perceptions and experiences of using mHealth technologies to deliver primary healthcare services: a qualitative evidence synthesis.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Introducing malaria rapid diagnostic tests in private medicine retail outlets: A systematic literature review.PloS one · 2017Pooled it
- The social role of C-reactive protein point-of-care testing to guide antibiotic prescription in Northern Thailand.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2018Trial
- Positive tests are all alike, every negative test is negative in its own way: lack of confidence in negative malaria rapid diagnostic tests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Malaria journal · 2026Article
- The effects of introduced procedural errors on malaria rapid diagnostic test performance in a laboratory setting.Malaria journal · 2025Article
- Using sputum and tongue swab specimens for in-home point-of-care targeted universal testing for tuberculosis of household contacts: an acceptability and feasibility analysis.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Acceptability and feasibility of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) testing using SD Biosensor by village malaria workers in Cambodia: a qualitative study.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Antimicrobials as cornerstones and quick fixes Zimbabwean in healthcare and society: Health practitioners´ critical reflections on two stories of antimicrobial use as part of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) education.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Equivocal diagnostics: Making a 'good' point-of-care test for elimination in global health.Social studies of science · 2024Article
- The social lives of point-of-care tests in low- and middle-income countries: a meta-ethnography.Health policy and planning · 2024Article
- Implementation of Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) testing for Plasmodium vivax case management, a mixed method study from Cambodia.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Temporal discrepancies in "rapid" HIV testing: explaining misdiagnoses at the point-of-care in Zimbabwe.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- The "ready-to-hand" test: Diagnostic availability and usability in primary health care settings in Sierra Leone.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Reconciling imperatives: Clinical guidelines, antibiotic prescribing and the enactment of good care in lower-level health facilities in Tororo, Uganda.Global public health · 2022Article
- The hidden burden of medical testing: public views and experiences of COVID-19 testing as a social and ethical process.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Engineering a sustainable future for point-of-care diagnostics and single-use microfluidic devices.Lab on a chip · 2022Review
- Feasibility and acceptability of using the novel urine-based FujiLAM test to detect tuberculosis: A multi-country mixed-methods study.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2022Article
- User perspectives and preferences on a novel TB LAM diagnostic (Fujifilm SILVAMP TB LAM)-a qualitative study in Malawi and Zambia.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Implementing radical cure diagnostics for malaria: user perspectives on G6PD testing in Bangladesh.Malaria journal · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMalaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are assumed to be simple-to-use and mobile technologies that have the capacity to standardize parasitological diagnosis for malaria across a variety of clinical settings. In order to evaluate these tests, it is important to consider how such assumptions play out in practice, in everyday settings of clinics, health centres, drug stores and for community health volunteers.
methodsThis paper draws on qualitative research on RDTs conducted over the last nine years. In particular the study reports on four qualitative case studies on the use of RDTs from Uganda, Tanzania and Sierra Leone, including qualitative interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation.
resultsResults suggest that while RDTs may be simple to use as stand-alone technological tools, it is not trivial to make them work effectively in a variety of economically pressured health care settings. The studies show that to perform RDTs effectively might very well need exactly the infrastructure they were designed to substitute: the medical expertise, organizational capacity and diagnostic and treatment options of well-funded and functioning health systems.
conclusionsThese results underline that successful malaria diagnosis and treatment requires as much investment in general health infrastructure as it does in new technologies.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.