Prozone effect

Navigation
Main Malaria Index
>RDT main page
>>Single Band Tests
>>>Current page: The prozone effect

The prozone-like (postzone) phenomenon The prozone-like or "postzone" phenomenon (the term postzone effect is preferred in this context as prozone refers to excess antibody, while postzone refers to excess antigen) is a very rare, but recognised effect that causes false negative results of tests. Most often the prozone effect is seen with HRP2 antigens. This effect means that where these is a very high parasitaemia (causing excess HRP2 antigen to be present) test can appear negative. It is thought that the presence of excess antigen means that the formation of appropriate antibody-antigen complexes is prevented so that the test does not function correctly.