General information on diagnosing malaria can be found on the CDC Malaria Diagnosis (United States) Web page.
Laboratory confirmation of the diagnosis is made by detecting malaria parasites (or DNA) in the patient’s blood, through examining stained specimens with a light microscope (the gold standard), using various antigen test kits or using molecular methods (e.g., polymerase chain reaction (PCR)).
In the United States, CDC provides assistance to health care providers for diagnosis and management of suspected cases of malaria (contact the CDC Malaria Hotline or malaria@cdc.gov).
Military Malaria-Related Diagnostic Guidance and Tools
- Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center Guide to Malaria Prevention and Control, NMCPHC Technical Manual NMCPHC-TIM 6250.1, July 2015
- Arthropod Vector Rapid Detection (AV-RDD) Kits,
- The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) in collaboration with commercial partners has developed enhanced diagnostic and detection tools which are hand-held assays used to determine whether arthropods (sand flies and mosquitoes) in an area of operations are infected with pathogens capable of infecting personnel with diseases including malaria.
Disease Reporting
Malaria is a reportable disease to both civilian public health authorities in the U.S. and to the Military Health System (MHS):
- Guidance for reporting malaria in the U.S. can be found on the CDC How to Report a Case of Malaria Web page.
- In the MHS, reporting is required for all military healthcare system beneficiaries (e.g., service members, family members, retirees, civilian federal government employees). Guidance for case definition and reporting can be found on the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch, Reports and Publications Web page. (Reportable Events guidelines can be found under the heading "Armed Forces Reportable Events" and case definitions can be found under the heading "Surveillance Case Definitions.")