Fig. 2

Proposed community-based management of febrile illness based on incorporating a disease severity marker into RDTs. An RDT with a disease severity marker could enhance triage and individualized management of children at risk of severe malaria or other life-threatening infections. In this pragmatic “precision medicine” approach, a febrile patient with a positive malaria result and negative disease severity result could managed as a case of uncomplicated malaria with an oral ACT treatment in the community setting. Patients with positive malaria results and positive disease severity results would be urgently referred for treatment with intravenous artesunate and supportive care. Patients with negative malaria but positive disease severity results would also be referred for supportive care and consideration of parenteral antibiotics. A patient with a malaria negative and disease severity negative result could be given antipyretics and monitored as an outpatient