New York Times: Rapid Malaria Tests Work, but With Unexpected Drawbacks
“Rapid diagnostic tests have greatly improved malaria treatment in the last decade, but they also had some unexpected bad consequences, a large new study has found. As hoped, the tests … substantially decreased how many patients with fever were incorrectly given or sold malaria drugs when they did not have malaria. But the number of patients who got antibiotics instead shot up, even if they were not tested for bacterial infections — a practice that encourages the emergence of drug-resistant germs…” (McNeil, 8/7).