Malaria is one of the most important infectious diseases in Africa. It is a devastating parasitic disease, killing almost half-a-million people per year, causing over 200 million episodes of debilitating illness, trapping countries in poverty and consuming huge amounts of international aid budget. The majority of this burden occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, disproportionately affecting the poorest, most remote, most marginalized and inaccessible populations. Despite huge progress over the last 15 years thanks to substantial investments of the Global community, progress has recently stalled, with 10 African countries contributing to about 70% of the global malaria burden. Challenges to further progress against malaria include: a lack of real-time and reliable surveillance data on parasite prevalence and malaria incidence; the large reservoir of infected but asymptomatic individuals; emerging antimalarial resistance (especially the threat of resistance to artemisinin, the most potent antimalarial drugs); the emergence of parasites which can evade conventional rapid diagnostic tests due to deletions of PfHRP2 and PfHRP3 antigens; and detection of human glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (which is common in malaria endemic populations, but predisposes to haemolysis upon exposure to certain antimalarial drugs). Digital diagnostics provide a disruptive solution to these problems, with rapid, cheap, connected, point-of-care tests accompanied by decision support, essentially bringing the laboratory to the patient, and providing vital information for disease surveillance and control to national and international public health bodies. The digital diagnostic platform (Lacewing) is a cartridge-based, isothermal, electrochemical DNA biosensor, coupled instantaneously by Bluetooth to a smart phone app, which provides data analysis, decision support, time and location stamping and up-load to a secure, cloud-based surveillance platform.