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You still don't get it. It's not neccessary to diagnose for malaria via blood. Malaria patients know they have malaria in almost all cases, because they are fam

You still don't get it. It's not neccessary to diagnose for malaria via blood. Malaria patients know they have malaria in almost all cases, because they are familiar with the disease. As soon as the symptoms show, they take the tablets. If the problem is not fixed, then it was not malaria. But if you live in a malaria area and you have the typical malaria fever, 99.9% of the time it will be malaria. Blood diagnosis is unnecessary and expensive. Just take the pills.

kenjackson 15y ago
I'm no expert. I don't claim to be. My point is that people actually appear to do testing. Now maybe you should relay your message to these testers, but it doesn't appear to be uncommon. In fact, there's a whole Wikipedia page dedicate to Malaria testing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_antigen_detection_tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_antigen_detection_tests And they note more than 20 commercial products for sale that test for Malaria. Here's a paper from the NIH on the importance and state of rapid Malaria diagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223842/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223842/ Here's another NIH paper talking about an Malaria eradication, and a big part of their plan is diagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21311583 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21311583 Again, I'm not expert (or even novice), but looking at the literature and what people in the field are working on -- it looks like they make use of diagnostic tools for Malaria. I've certainly seen no papers saying that diagnostics isn't useful in 99.99% of all cases, just pop a pill. Not saying that that's not what should be done, but I find the evidence thus far lacking.
- maxklein 15y ago
  The people who need to diagnose it are in a hospital, where they can just use one of many methods. They don't need to to peer through an android lens. Laymen rarely need to diagnose malaria because the symptoms are very very clear.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    From the other poster, this is from WHO: "Clinical diagnosis, the most widely used approach, is unreliable because the symptoms of malaria are very non-speciﬁc." From the last NIH paper I referenced, "Many of malaria's signs and symptoms are indistinguishable from those of other febrile diseases." Here's a paper from the Lancet about Malaria misdiagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555670 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555670 From the above: "Effective and affordable treatment is recommended for all cases of malaria within 24 h of the onset of illness. Most cases of "malaria" (ie, fever) are self-diagnosed and most treatments, and deaths, occur at home. The most ethical and cost-effective policy is to ensure that newer drug combinations are only used for true cases of malaria. Although it is cost effective to improve the accuracy of malaria diagnosis, simple, accurate, and inexpensive methods are not widely available, particularly in poor communities where they are most needed." Additionally people apparently can build up a resistance to the Malaria treatment. See: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78014 http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78014 “When people are sick in Mali, the doctor will usually tell them they have malaria whether or not they test for it,” said Fatou Faye, an infectious diseases researcher and trainer at a privately funded medical laboratory, the Charles Merieux Centre in Bamako. “The patients then buy anti-malarial drugs in the street and build up a resistance to treatment.” As a result, according to research by Dr. Imelda Bates at the Malaria Knowledge Project (MKP), part of the Liverpool University School of Tropical Medicine, this means people miss other causes of feverish illness such as pneumonia and meningitis, which can cause further illness and even death. Again, I'm not saying your wrong necessarily, but everything I read seems to point to the fact that low-cost accurate Malaria diagnosis would be useful.
    - btilly 15y ago
      Again, I'm not saying your wrong necessarily... Actually you're telling him that he's acting exactly like people commonly do in malarial areas, and are informing him that simply taking that course of action breeds worse varieties of malaria, and causes people to die of unrelated diseases that could have been treated. This strongly suggests that he has practical experience with malaria. And is useful information for him about how the advice he has based on experience is suboptimal.
john_horton 15y ago
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2000/WHO_CDS_RBM_2000.14.pdf http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2000/WHO_CDS_RBM_2000.14.pdf From WHO/USAID report on Malaria detection (executive summary): "In malaria patients, a prompt and accurate diagnosis is the key to effective disease management. The two diagnostic approaches currently used most often, however, do not allow a satisfactory diagnosis of malaria. Clinical diagnosis, the most widely used approach, is unreliable because the symptoms of malaria are very non-speciﬁc. Microscopic diagnosis, the established method for laboratory conﬁrmation of malaria, presents technical and personnel requirements that often cannot be met, particularly in facilities at the periphery of the health care system. In addition, delays in the provision of the microscopy results to the clinician mean that decisions on treatment may be taken without the beneﬁt of the results. Thus, the recent introduction of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria is of considerable interest."
- maxklein 15y ago
  The report is completely disconnected from reality. Malaria patients often have very clear symptoms, and at the point where a diagnosis is necessary, a blood test WILL have to be done. Malaria is a very common disease, and there are very clear and available treatments, and the symptoms are very well known. The blood tests are also very available. This android device is solving a solved problem.
  - aashay 15y ago
    Why do you keep calling it an Android device? The article clearly states it's a Windows 7 Mobile device-specific app.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
webnographer 15y ago
I have had malaria twice. When you have it you definitely know you have the disease. Your legs shake from side to side. You can diagnose disease as well becuase your temperature goes in a zig zag patern over a 10 to 20 min cycle. none of these methods will tell you what kind of maleria you have, which is usefull to know what the best treatment is. Sometimes this is not necessary as there is only one kind in the region. It should not be under estimated how hard it is tell one type of maleria from the other. The last time I had it took 4 hours for a major hospital in London to identfy that I had 3 types of parasite in my blood.

kenjackson 15y ago

I'm no expert. I don't claim to be. My point is that people actually appear to do testing. Now maybe you should relay your message to these testers, but it doesn't appear to be uncommon. In fact, there's a whole Wikipedia page dedicate to Malaria testing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_antigen_detection_tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_antigen_detection_tests And they note more than 20 commercial products for sale that test for Malaria. Here's a paper from the NIH on the importance and state of rapid Malaria diagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223842/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223842/ Here's another NIH paper talking about an Malaria eradication, and a big part of their plan is diagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21311583 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21311583 Again, I'm not expert (or even novice), but looking at the literature and what people in the field are working on -- it looks like they make use of diagnostic tools for Malaria. I've certainly seen no papers saying that diagnostics isn't useful in 99.99% of all cases, just pop a pill. Not saying that that's not what should be done, but I find the evidence thus far lacking.

maxklein 15y ago
The people who need to diagnose it are in a hospital, where they can just use one of many methods. They don't need to to peer through an android lens. Laymen rarely need to diagnose malaria because the symptoms are very very clear.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  From the other poster, this is from WHO: "Clinical diagnosis, the most widely used approach, is unreliable because the symptoms of malaria are very non-speciﬁc." From the last NIH paper I referenced, "Many of malaria's signs and symptoms are indistinguishable from those of other febrile diseases." Here's a paper from the Lancet about Malaria misdiagnosis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555670 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555670 From the above: "Effective and affordable treatment is recommended for all cases of malaria within 24 h of the onset of illness. Most cases of "malaria" (ie, fever) are self-diagnosed and most treatments, and deaths, occur at home. The most ethical and cost-effective policy is to ensure that newer drug combinations are only used for true cases of malaria. Although it is cost effective to improve the accuracy of malaria diagnosis, simple, accurate, and inexpensive methods are not widely available, particularly in poor communities where they are most needed." Additionally people apparently can build up a resistance to the Malaria treatment. See: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78014 http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78014 “When people are sick in Mali, the doctor will usually tell them they have malaria whether or not they test for it,” said Fatou Faye, an infectious diseases researcher and trainer at a privately funded medical laboratory, the Charles Merieux Centre in Bamako. “The patients then buy anti-malarial drugs in the street and build up a resistance to treatment.” As a result, according to research by Dr. Imelda Bates at the Malaria Knowledge Project (MKP), part of the Liverpool University School of Tropical Medicine, this means people miss other causes of feverish illness such as pneumonia and meningitis, which can cause further illness and even death. Again, I'm not saying your wrong necessarily, but everything I read seems to point to the fact that low-cost accurate Malaria diagnosis would be useful.
  - btilly 15y ago
    Again, I'm not saying your wrong necessarily... Actually you're telling him that he's acting exactly like people commonly do in malarial areas, and are informing him that simply taking that course of action breeds worse varieties of malaria, and causes people to die of unrelated diseases that could have been treated. This strongly suggests that he has practical experience with malaria. And is useful information for him about how the advice he has based on experience is suboptimal.

john_horton 15y ago

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2000/WHO_CDS_RBM_2000.14.pdf http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2000/WHO_CDS_RBM_2000.14.pdf From WHO/USAID report on Malaria detection (executive summary): "In malaria patients, a prompt and accurate diagnosis is the key to effective disease management. The two diagnostic approaches currently used most often, however, do not allow a satisfactory diagnosis of malaria. Clinical diagnosis, the most widely used approach, is unreliable because the symptoms of malaria are very non-speciﬁc. Microscopic diagnosis, the established method for laboratory conﬁrmation of malaria, presents technical and personnel requirements that often cannot be met, particularly in facilities at the periphery of the health care system. In addition, delays in the provision of the microscopy results to the clinician mean that decisions on treatment may be taken without the beneﬁt of the results. Thus, the recent introduction of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria is of considerable interest."

maxklein 15y ago
The report is completely disconnected from reality. Malaria patients often have very clear symptoms, and at the point where a diagnosis is necessary, a blood test WILL have to be done. Malaria is a very common disease, and there are very clear and available treatments, and the symptoms are very well known. The blood tests are also very available. This android device is solving a solved problem.
- aashay 15y ago
  Why do you keep calling it an Android device? The article clearly states it's a Windows 7 Mobile device-specific app.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

webnographer 15y ago

I have had malaria twice. When you have it you definitely know you have the disease. Your legs shake from side to side. You can diagnose disease as well becuase your temperature goes in a zig zag patern over a 10 to 20 min cycle. none of these methods will tell you what kind of maleria you have, which is usefull to know what the best treatment is. Sometimes this is not necessary as there is only one kind in the region. It should not be under estimated how hard it is tell one type of maleria from the other. The last time I had it took 4 hours for a major hospital in London to identfy that I had 3 types of parasite in my blood.