3 ms·
I have a few questions for you / your AI? 1) what if the malaria test costs a lot - should i do it on this patient? Or save those resources for a different pati
by ghufran_syed 4y ago
I have a few questions for you / your AI?
1) what if the malaria test costs a lot - should i do it on this patient? Or save those resources for a different patient? before this patient ever arrived, we need to decide if should we spend $20 on the malaria test kit…or treat 20 kids with the mumps,measles,rubella vaccine for $1 each?
2) what if the test is negative? now what do i do? could it be a false negative? how do I decide?
3) what if the patient has a headache as well? could this be bacterial meningitis? 3a) if so, should I give them antibiotics now or after a lumbar puncture?
3b) could they have both malaria and bacterial meningitis? should i do a lumbar puncture to confirm or rule out bacterial meningitis? but doing an LP in the presence of cerebral edema / raised intracranial pressure can cause severe brain damage and death - should I do a CT scan of the brain to rule out raised intracranial pressure first?
and so on. There are some conditions that are so clearcut and some tests that are so effective, that you could safely diagnose it algorithmically…and a whole bunch that you can’t
- ckk175 4y agoThe malaria RDT costs about $0.25. To be clear this is a screening test - not a diagnostic test. An actual diagnostic would involve taking a small blood sample, smearing on a slide and looking for malaria plasmodium under a microscope. Not expensive but time consuming and requires a microscope and a trained technician.