Challenges in Laboratory Diagnosis of Malaria in a Low-Resource Country at Tertiary Care in Eastern Nepal: A Comparative Study of Conventional vs. Molecular Methodologies

Table 2

Performance characteristics of microscopy and RDT when compared with real-time PCR.

Test characteristics	Microscopic examination	RDT
TP (PCR = 14)	3	4
FP (PCR negative)	0	3
TN (PCR = 38)	38	35
FN (PCR positive)	11	10
Sensitivity	21.4%	28.6%
Specificity	100%	92.1%
PPV	100%	57.14%
NPV	77.6%	77.8%
Accuracy	78.84%	75%
Kappa value	0.285	0.246
value	0.003	0.053

TP = true positive, FP = false positive, TN = true negative, FN = false negative, PPV = positive predictive value, and NPV = negative predictive value.