Background: Malaria diagnosis by microscopy is the gold standard method for confirming the cases. Inrnspite of clinical diagnosis, the inability of laboratory professionals on microscopy diagnosis has led to overrnas well as under diagnosis. This may result in inappropriate use of anti-malarial drugs that increases thernrisk of drug resistance, and other diseases are overlooked and not treated in a timely manner.rnObjective: To evaluate the performance of laboratory professionals in diagnosis of malaria species amongrnselected health facilities found under Defense Health Main Department in Addis Ababa and surroundingrnarea, Ethiopia.rnMethod: A cross sectional study was conducted from June to July, 2015. All laboratory professionals whornwork in selected health facilities were included in the study. Data was collected by distributing arnstandardized pre-validated malaria slide panel and self-administered questionnaires. Finally, data analysisrnwas performed using SPSS version 20 to look an association between independent variable and dependentrnvariable. An agreement in detection and species identification of malaria parasites between participants andrnexpert microscopists was estimated using the Kappa score.rnResult: The mean age of the participants was 32 Â± 5.43 years. The majority of the participants 48 (80%)rnwere males. Only 9(15%) participants used recommended quantification system. Five(8.3%) of thernparticipants correctly reported all the distributed slides, whereas 55(91.7%) missed at least two slide.rnOverall, the sensitivity and specificity of performance among participants in detection of malaria parasitesrnwere 65.7% and 100% respectively. The overall agreement in performance between participants andrnreference readers on detection of malaria parasite was 71.4% (Kappa = 0.4) while on identification ofrnmalaria species, it was 51.1% (kappa = 0.04). Lower agreement was observed on detection andrnidentification of slides with low parasitic density and mixed infection.rnConclusion: Agreement of performance among the participants and expert microscopist in the detection ofrnmalaria parasites was better than agreement in the identification of different species of malaria. Poorrnagreement was reported in detection of parasites at a low density and mixed infections. Hence, malariarncontrol program should work towards increasing the competency of lab personnel in malaria microscopy,rnparticularly in non-malarious area of the country where the professionals have lower exposure to malariarndiagnosis.rnKey words: Performance, Kappa test, Malaria, Blood Film