Medical personnel are not using RDT to diagnosing malaria

Mr. Kwame Sampson, acting Jomoro District Director of Health, on Thursday said medical personnel in the district were not using the Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) to diagnose malaria cases for treatment.

He said the RDT is the approved procedure for diagnosing malaria cases and failure of medical personnel to use the procedure was affecting proper treatment of malaria in the district.

Mr. Sampson was speaking at a Health Service Stakeholders meeting organized by Hope for Future Generation (HFFG) and the United Kingdom Department for International Development in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

The meeting, which was aimed at scaling up testing of malaria cases to ensure proper treatment, formed part of the “Behavior Change Communication (BCC) Initiative for Promotion of the use of RDTs and Microscopes in Diagnosing Malaria”.

It was attended by 58 community leaders, volunteers and public and private health attendants in the district. Mr. Sampson said non-malaria cases were been treated as malaria through clinical diagnosis instead of RDTs and this had led to increase of malaria cases in the district.

He said a total of 40,755 malaria cases were recorded after clinical diagnosis in 2010, 45,400 cases in 2011, 38,809 cases in 2012 and 53,914 cases in 2013 but 5,420 cases were confirmed as malaria through RDT in 2010, 9,461 cases in 2011, 2,449 cases in 2012 and 11,158 cases in 2013.

Madam Comfort Ameyaw, Western Regional Coordinator of HFFG, said the organization was undertaking a two-year project in the Western and Brong Ahafo regions to encourage the use of RDT to diagnosis malaria and the project would be extended to other regions.

It came out during the open forum that RDT was not been used as expected because clinical diagnosis of malaria enabled health facilities to obtain revenue.