Accra, May 14, GNA - A new evaluation of malaria rapid diagnostic tests would help health workers to quickly identify which patients have the disease and need immediate treatment. This puts into action recent World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations to confirm diagnosis of malaria before treatment. Malaria kills 860,000 people a year world-wide, mostly children in Africa, with cases in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Europe.

A statement issued by the WHO and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Friday, said the Malaria Product Testing Evaluation Programme just completed a new assessment of the performance of 29 rapid diagnostic tests and found that 16 of them met minimum performance criteria set by WHO. Dr. Robert Newman, Director of WHO's Global Malaria Programme said "These rapid tests have been a major breakthrough in malaria control. They allow us to test people who cannot access diagnosis based on microscopy in remote, rural areas where the majority of malaria occurs."' In 2008, just 22 per cent of suspected malaria cases were tested in 18 out of 35 African countries reporting. Universal diagnosis would enable health workers to identify which patients with fever have malaria and need life-saving anti malaria drugs, and which have other causes of illness and require alternative treatment. Better diagnosis of the disease would improve overall childhood survival, one of the UN Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 14 May 10