Testing urgency, not diagnosis

Malaria exposure and testing checklist

Organise exposure and symptom information so you can act promptly. Country-level labels and seasonal patterns cannot tell whether an individual has malaria.

Do not wait for this checklist. Get emergency care now for confusion, seizures, difficulty breathing, extreme weakness, abnormal bleeding, dark or bloody urine, or yellow eyes/skin. Suspected malaria needs parasite-based testing; severe malaria can progress quickly.

Private checklist

Current symptoms
Emergency warning signs
Higher-risk context

Next-step summary

Complete the checklist. A negative or low-concern result cannot rule out malaria.

Safe interpretation

The engine uses an escalation hierarchy: any emergency sign → emergency care; a reported positive result → qualified malaria care today; symptoms with a negative or pending result → same-day reassessment; compatible symptoms with possible exposure or higher-risk context → prompt same-day parasite-based testing. It never recommends antimalarial medicines or doses.

Official sources, reviewed 26 July 2026: WHO malaria fact sheet (4 December 2025); WHO Global Malaria Programme: diagnosis; WHO malaria RDT information notice (31 March 2025).