Malaria is a common mosquito–borne disease and is one of the world’s major public health problems

contributing 243 million clinical cases and over a million deaths each year[1]. India leads the South East

Asia region in terms of malaria cases[2 ].Odisha state with 3.8% of India’s population accounted for 25%

of total malaria cases,more than 40 % of Plasmodium falciparum malaria cases and nearly 20–30% of

total malaria deaths in India[2 ]. It is characterized clinically  by fever,rigor and chills and can be serious

illness in children and can be fatal especially  Plasmodium falciparum(Pf) malaria.Early and accurate

diagnosis of malaria is essential for surveillance, proper management and prevention of death due to

malaria. Overlap of malaria symptoms with other tropical diseases like typhoid fever, respiratory tract

infections and viral infections impairs the specificity of presumptive diagnosis thereby encouraging

indiscriminate use of antimalarials in endemic areas.World Health Organization recommends prompt

diagnosis of malaria either by microscopic examination of blood smear or malaria rapid diagnostic

test(RDT) in all clinically suspected malaria cases before administering anti–malarial drugs in their

treatment[3].Diagnostic tests improves the overall management of febrile patients and may also help to

reduce the emergence of drug resistance by reserving anti–malarial drugs for those who actually have

malaria.The rapid diagnostic test (RDT) is a quick and easy test when compared with microscopic

examination of blood smear which takes more time and require good quality microscopy and competent

technical expertise.Malaria rapid diagnostic tests having high sensitivity and negative predictive value

particularly for plasmodium falciparum malaria have the potential to significantly improve management

of malaria infections especially in children where Pf malaria could have been fatal.