Table 4.

Sensitivity and specificity regarding the External quality assessment in dried blood spot.

		Methods	Positive EQA	Negative EQA	Sensitivity (%)	Specificity (%)	PPV (%)	NPV (%)
P. falciparum	Real time PCR	Positive	8	0	73 ± 26	100 ± 25	73 ± 26	100 ± 25
		Negative	3	12
		Total	11	12
P. vivax		Positive	6	0	100 ± 50	100 ± 25	100 ± 50	100 ± 25
		Negative	0	12
		Total	6	12
P. malariae		Positive	3	0	43 ± 37	100 ± 25	43 ± 37	100 ± 25
		Negative	4	12
		Total	7	12
P. ovale		Positive	4	0	100 ± 75	100 ± 25	100 ± 75	100 ± 25
		Negative	0	12
		Total	4	12
P. knowlesi		Positive	3	0	100 ± 100	100 ± 25	100 ± 100	100 ± 25
		Negative	0	12
		Total	3	12

EQA External Quality Assessment, NPV negative predictive value, PPV positive predictive value. Parasitemia of the positive samples: P. falciparum from 0.2 to 1.1 10⁶ p/µl, P. vivax from 5 to 400 p/µl, P. malariae from 2.3 to 800 p/µl, P. ovale from 20 to 280 p/µl and P. knowlesi from 2 to 20 p/µl.