Bell 2001a.

Clinical features and settings	Presenting signs and symptoms: History of fever, headache, chills or rigors occurring within the preceding three days; or more distant history of fever or non‐specific signs suggestive of malaria. Previous treatment for malaria: Participants who had recently taken antimalarials were not excluded; 5% of participants reported prior antimalarial use. Clinical setting: Village health workers in five barangaya (districts) Country: Philippines (Agusan del Sur Province in the northeast of the island of Maindano) Malaria endemicity: Generally low perennial transmission, with pockets of high transmission Malaria endemic species:P. falciparum andP. vivax
Participants	Sample size: 350 Age: Eligible age range not stated. Mean age of the participants was 19.5 years. Sex: Both males and females eligible. There were 171 male and 179 female participants. Co‐morbidities and pregnancy: Not mentioned, either an exclusion criteria or characteristic of included participants Parasite density of microscopy positive cases: Not presented
Study design	Enrollment was prospective. The sampling method was not described. One RDT was evaluated.
Target condition and reference standard(s)	Target condition: Malaria parasitaemia Reference standard: Microscopy of thick and thin blood smears Person(s) performing microscopy: An experienced local microscopist for all slides; selected slides were also read by an experienced parasitologist Microscopy setting: Local laboratory and hospital laboratory in Australia Number of high power fields examined before declaring negative: 100 Number of observer or repeats: One, except in discordant cases where RDT and microscopy results differed, all cases RDT‐positive for P. vivax and 20% of cases negative by slide and RDT, in which case a second reader was used Resolution of discrepancies between observers: The second, off‐site reading was taken as the correct one
Index and comparator tests	Commerical name of RDT: ICT Malaria Pf/Pv (Amrad‐ICT, Sydney, Australia) Parasite(s) designed to detect:P. falciparum or mixed infection, non‐falciparum malaria species only Designated Type: Type 4 Batch numbers: Not stated Transport and storage conditions: Refrigerated until two weeks before use Person(s) performing RDT: Researchers RDT setting: Study villages
Follow‐up	Not applicable
Notes	Source of funding: The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
Table of Methodological Quality
Item	Authors' judgement	Description
Representative spectrum? All tests	Unclear	All participants had approached village health workers with symptoms suggestive of malaria, but the sampling method was not described
Acceptable reference standard? All tests	Yes	An experienced microscopist viewed at least 100 high powered fields and discordant results were re‐examined
Partial verification avoided? All tests	Yes	All participants who received the index test also received the reference test
Differential verification avoided? All tests	Yes	The same reference test was used regardless of the index test results
Incorporation avoided? All tests	Yes	The index test does not form part of the reference standard
Reference standard results blinded? All tests	Yes	"Slides were read by a local microscopist who was not aware of the results of the ICT tests"
Index test results blinded? All tests	Yes	RDTs were performed two to four weeks before microscopy
Uninterpretable results reported? All tests	Yes	The paper reported that there was one uninterpretable microscopy result
Withdrawals explained? All tests	Unclear	The number of participants originally enrolled in the study was not stated; therefore it is unclear whether there were any withdrawals