Blood Test for Malaria

QUESTION

I would like to know whether the malaria prevention medicine could impact the blood test result for malaria?
For example, if we did a blood test after taking the malaria prevention medicine, will the blood test result could be positive because of that and we are actually not having malaria parasite inside our body?

ANSWER

Malaria preventative medication should not give you a false positive test result – in other words, if you are on malaria medication and take a malaria blood test, if it says you are positive, then you probably have malaria! Anti-malaria medication prevents malaria from establishing in your blood, and it is very effective if taken correctly, but there are instances in which someone taking anti-malarials still gets malaria. In these cases, the anti-malarials will often ensure than the severity of the infection is greatly reduced – it can also delay the onset of symptoms.

If you have taken medications for malaria, please help Malaria.com by taking our Malaria Medication Side-effects Survey: Treatment and Prophylaxis. Thank you!