Assessment of desiccants and their instructions for use in rapid diagnostic tests

Malaria Journal

Table 3 Silica gel sachets inspected in RDTs: type, presence of indicator and saturation

N°	Number of sachets assessed	% saturated* (95% CI)	% without indicator^† (95% CI)
Self-indicating silica gel
1	625	0.0
2	1,933	0.05 (0.01 - 2.88)
3	190	0.0
4	223	0.0
5	550	0.0
6	484	1.2 (0.46 - 2.68)
7	566	4.6 (3.02 - 6.66)
Partial-indicating silica gel^‡
1	1,507	0.3 (0.08 - 0.75)	9.5 (8.06 - 11.08)
2	2,160	0.1 (0.13 - 0.39)	13.5 (12.06 - 14.99)
3	384	2.5 (1.09 - 4.87)	16.7 (13.08 - 20.78)
4	672	0.2 (0.00 - 0.94)	12.5 (10.09 - 15.24)
5	2,066	0.0	14.6 (13.08 - 16.17)
6	483	0.0	17.8 (14.50 - 21.52)
7	1,721	3.6 (2.75 - 4.68)	10.2 (8.84 - 11.76)
8	483	0.0	0.6 (0.13 - 1.80)
9	146	0.0	6.8 (3.33 - 12.24)

* % saturated: proportion (%) of sachets with humidity indicator that indicated saturation.
^† % without indicator: proportion (%) of partial-indicating silica gel sachets in which no indicator (coloured) beads were observed.
^‡ The number of partial-indicating silica gel sachets exceeds that of table 2 because from one RDT product two lots with different desiccant types, including partial-indicating silica gel, were available.

ISSN: 1475-2875