An all in one rapid malaria testing device is planned to be introduced to the African market at the 6th MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference in Durban, South Africa this month.

The device, which uses blood samples to test for Malaria, has been developed by Australian healthcare company, Atomo Diagnostics, and is called ‘AtomoRapid Malaria’.

According to a statement AtomoRapid Malaria is geared for both professional and self-test applications as it enables quick and reliable diagnosis of malaria in the field.

The device ensures that common errors that could occur when using complicated malaria test kits are reduced through the integration of blood collection and delivery features in the test cassette.

Figures from The Global Fund show of the 655,000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2010, over 90% of these occurred in Africa.

John Kelly, the chief executive officer and founder of Atomo Diagnostics said, “Malaria is as much of a threat to the wellbeing of Africans as HIV is, so we wanted to ensure that we were also able to utilise the next-generation AtomoRapid solution to aid in the fight against Malaria.”

“The Atomo team has been working hard towards making AtomoRapid HIV and AtomoRapid Malaria available to the market at a competitive price and the response we have received so far has been fantastic – we now look forward to collaborating with leading organisations to change the rapid testing landscape,” said Kelly.

AtomoRapid Malaria is planned to be manufactured in South Africa and is expected to be available to customers in the coming months, it has been stated.