All blood samples were coded by research personnel to
ensure unbiased analysis and evaluation by the clinical
staff. Each sample was first evaluated by clinic/hospital
technicians by performing a one minute scan of the slide. If
the technician did not observe any malarial parasites during
this one minute scan, the sample was scored as negative.
If a Plasmodium parasitized red blood cell was observed
during this one minute scan, the technician immediately
initiated an evaluation of 1000 RBCs and the number
of parasitized red blood cells was recorded. Statistical
differences in the number of parasites counted by each
method were determined by a paired student’s t-test. P
values of