Christian NsanzabanaFrederic ArieyHans Peter BeckXavier C. DingEdwin KamauSanjeev KrishnaEric LegrandNaomi LucchiOlivo MiottoSidsel NagHarald NoedlCally RoperPhilip J. RosenthalHenk D.F.H. SchalligSteve M. TaylorSarah K. VolkmanIveth J. GonzalezDuke University Medical CenterMedizinische Universitat Wien, Zentrum für Pathophysiologie, Infektiologie und ImmunologieFoundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, SwitzerlandHarvard School of Public HealthLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical MedicineKøbenhavns UniversitetSt George's University of LondonUniversite Paris DescartesUniversity of OxfordUniversity of California, San FranciscoUniversitat BaselSwiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH)Centers for Disease Control and PreventionHopital Cochin AP-HPCopenhagen University HospitalWalter Reed Army Institute of ResearchMahidol UniversityUnited States ArmyWellcome Sanger InstituteUniversity of AmsterdamInstitut Pasteur, ParisBroad InstituteSimmons University2019-08-232019-08-232018-09-01PLoS ONE. Vol.13, No.9 (2018)193262032-s2.0-85053676487https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/44690This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Antimalarial drug resistance is a major constraint for malaria control and elimination efforts. Artemisinin-based combination therapy is now the mainstay for malaria treatment. However, delayed parasite clearance following treatment with artemisinin derivatives has now spread in the Greater Mekong Sub region and may emerge or spread to other malaria endemic regions. This spread is of great concern for malaria control programmes, as no alternatives to artemisinin-based combination therapies are expected to be available in the near future. There is a need to strengthen surveillance systems for early detection and response to the antimalarial drug resistance threat. Current surveillance is mainly done through therapeutic efficacy studies; however these studies are complex and both time- and resource-intensive. For multiple common antimalarials, parasite drug resistance has been correlated with specific genetic mutations, and the molecular markers associated with antimalarial drug resistance offer a simple and powerful tool to monitor the emergence and spread of resistant parasites. Different techniques to analyse molecular markers associated with antimalarial drug resistance are available, each with advantages and disadvantages. However, procedures are not adequately harmonized to facilitate comparisons between sites. Here we describe the target product profiles for tests to analyse molecular markers associated with antimalarial drug resistance, discuss how use of current techniques can be standardised, and identify the requirements for an ideal product that would allow malaria endemic countries to provide useful spatial and temporal information on the spread of resistance.Mahidol UniversityAgricultural and Biological SciencesBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular BiologyArticleSCOPUS10.1371/journal.pone.0204347