Table 1.

The proportion of additionally detected infections by ultrasensitive molecular methods is associated with transmission intensity

Reference	Setting	N	Plasmodium falciparum prevalence by detection method, %			Ratio
			Microscopy/RDT	Standard PCR*	usPCR*
			LOD 50–200 p/µL	LOD: 0.1–10 p/µL	LOD: 0.002–0.2 p/µL
Awandu et al.2	South Africa	1,475	0	0	3.9	N/A
Gruenberg et al.9	Brazil	651	–	0.80	1.7	--: 1: 2.1
Gruenberg et al.9	Thailand	773	–	1.3	1.9	--: 1: 1.5
Gruenberg et al.9	Papua New Guinea	828	–	8.6	12.2	--: 1: 1.4
Girma et al.1	Gambella region, Ethiopia	562	2.0†	13‡	21.5	0.15: 1: 1.7
Hofmann et al.11	Madang Province, Papua New Guinea	300	8.1	29	33	0.28: 1: 1.1
					53 (high-volume)
This work	Bagamoyo, Tanzania	319	17†	32	37	0.53: 1: 1.2
Hofmann et al.10	Rufiji, Tanzania	498	25	50	58	0.50: 1: 1.2

RDT = rapid diagnostic tests. Standard PCRs all targeted 18s rRNA, either as a nested PCR (Awandu), (Gambella) or a real-time qPCR [Gruenberg], [Hofmann], this work.

^*Ultrasensitive PCR methods differed by study: (Awandu) TARE-2 qPCR, (Gruenberg) varATS, (Girma) 18s rRNA qRT-PCR, [Hofmann 2018] varATS, this work: 18s rRNA qRT-PCR (usPCR), (Hofmann et al.¹⁰) TARE-2/varATS qPCR.

^†Average of prevalence values reported for microscopy and RDT.

^‡Estimated based on a sub-study of 48 of the usPCR-positive samples.¹²