Abstract

This six-month study, conducted in 16 public health facilities in Benin, assessed the accuracy of recording malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) results by health workers. Of the 35,720 RDTs analyzed, the overall agreement between health workers and an external reference panel was 94.3%. The study revealed that errors in recording results as positive (5.0%) were more frequent than errors in recording results as negative (0.7%). Accuracy was higher among children under 5 years of age and among health workers with more than 10 years of experience or better access to infrastructure (electricity, internet). Despite good technical proficiency, shortcomings remain, particularly regarding waiting time before reading results and the use of gloves. In conclusion, although accuracy is high, targeted training efforts are needed to strengthen confidence in negative results, especially among adults.