Valoración de la calidad del diagnóstico malárico: Red de vigilancia, municipio Cajigal, estado Sucre, Venezuela

the national malaria control programme in venezuela, through the national laboratory, performs both training and updating on diagnosis activities in order to guarantee the parasitological diagnosis of malaria from the basic epidemiological units, that is, the municipalities. this becomes a very important guideline, since malaria case definition in venezuela depends on its parasitological confirmation. following the routine activity of the national laboratory of the performance evaluation of formerly trained microscope technicians, a descriptive study was developed to assess the quality of parasitological malaria diagnosis as an element of the malaria surveillance net. the study site was cajigal municipality, at the eastern malaria focus. standardized theoretical tests were applied to measure knowledge level as well as practical tests to estimate the diagnosis agreement with respect to the national laboratory. from this activity, taking into account detected needs, a minimal updating was given to participants. direct observation over working environments and microscopes quality was included. amongst eight participants, none of them passed the theoretical test and they gave the ？right diagnosis？ just 50% of the time on the practical evaluation. results showed that the performance level of these technicians, key personnel for the malaria surveillance system success in venezuela, has been neglected.