Analysis of false-negative rapid diagnostic tests for symptomatic malaria in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This is a collaborative project between SANRU, the DRC National Malaria Control Program (PNLP), the Kinshasa School of Public Health, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill intended to determine the causes of false-negative malaria rapid diagnostic tests in the DRC. Samples were collected from adults and children presenting to government health facilities with symptoms of malaria in three provinces (Kinshasa, Sud Kivu, and Bas Uele) during December 2017. Participants received multiple malaria diagnostic assays as part of the parent study. Eight samples that were initially flagged as having deletions of the pfhrp2 and pfhrp3 genes based on microscopy and PCR assays underwent whole-genome sequencing.