Table 2.
Sensitivities and specificities of new PCR assays compared to standard nested 18S rRNA PCRa
| Species | Result with: |
Sensitivity (%) | Specificity (%) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18S rRNA nested PCR (n) | New primers |
||||
| No. positive | No. negative | ||||
| P. falciparum | Positive (91) | 91 | 0 | 100 | 100 |
| Negative (9) | 0 | 9 | |||
| P. vivax | Positive (96) | 95 | 1 | 98.9 | 100 |
| Negative (13) | 0 | 13 | |||
a
The sensitivities and specificities of the new PCR assays were compared to those of standard nested 18S rRNA PCR (32). For conventional PCR, sensitivity and specificity were calculated using 96 P. vivax samples from Venezuela and 91 P. falciparum samples from Tanzania. DNA from nonmalarious patients was included as a negative control.