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Abstract

The present inventions relate to accurately identifying a subset of patients within a larger group with malarial parasitemia. In particular, the present inventions provide compositions and methods comprising a malarial protein, histidine rich pro-tein-2 (HRP-2) for determining the general severity of a malarial infection in patients. Specifically, the inventions provide a rapid test comprising a read-out for HRP-2 levels in bodily fluids for determining whether a comatose patient's disease is a result of malaria as opposed to coma of another cause with incidental parasitemia. Specifically, in one preferred embodiment, a rapid test is contemplated as a quantitative rapid test dipstick. Further, these inventions relate to predictive tests for patients at risk for progression of relatively mild malaria disease to the more life-threatening cerebral malaria in addition to determining the etiology of malaria infections in comatose patients.

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First Claim