ArticleMalaria journal2025
WHO malaria nucleic acid amplification test external quality assessment scheme: results of eleven distributions over 6 years.
Article in Malaria journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe World Health Organization (WHO) recommends parasite-based diagnosis of malaria before treatment. The use of nucleic-acid amplification (NAAT) for detection of Plasmodium spp. has expanded rapidly in recent years, for epidemiological research globally and clinical care in high-resource settings. Data from NAATs are frequently used to inform policy decisions, so quality control is essential to ensure results are reliable and comparable. Therefore, robust quality control, including an external quality assessment (EQA) scheme targeting malaria NAATs, is essential. The WHO Global Malaria Programme and the UK National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS) have collaborated since 2017 to implement a global malaria NAAT EQA scheme.
methodsPanels of specimens containing five major species of human-infecting Plasmodium at various parasite concentrations and negative samples were created in lyophilized blood (LB) and dried blood spot (DBS) formats. Two distributions per year were sent, containing five LB and five DBS specimens. Samples were validated by expert referee laboratories prior to distribution. Between 37 and 51 laboratories participated in each distribution and submitted results online. Participants were scored based on their laboratory's stated capacity to identify Plasmodium species, and individual laboratory reports were sent which included performance comparison with anonymized peers. Change in performance over time was calculated using a generalized mixed model with a logit link function.
resultsParticipating laboratories were located in 42 countries. Sample format (DBS or LB) and parasite density were found to significantly affect performance, while referee labs performed better at identifying P. falciparum samples than non-referee labs. Performance of laboratories improved significantly over time, especially for lower density and P. falciparum samples.
conclusionsResults from the first eleven distributions indicate that the EQA scheme has facilitated improved performance of laboratories over time, highlighting the value of implementing such programmes. EQA schemes are critical to safeguarding the reliability of data and diagnoses, especially in situations where NAAT methodologies and protocols are used. In future, funders should make participation in an EQA scheme a requirement for laboratories, and countries can take initiatives to embed such schemes into their own national assessment programmes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.