The rapid urease test (RUT) is used for diagnosing Helicobacter pylori infecton. This is an in-house method, which has not been validated. To validate our practce of reading the RUT immediately afer endoscopy at 10 min by comparing this with a reading at 30 minute and 1 hour and with histological analysis.Giemsa staining methods were used to identfy H. pylori. The RUT was read immediately (within 10 minutes of upper endoscopy) and each specimen was re-read at 30 minute, 1 hour. Sensitvity, specifcity, positve and negatve predictve values and accuracy rate were calculated.Histological examinaton revealed H. pylori in 44 (55%) cases and by RUT 39 (48.75 %). Sensitvity, specifcity, PPV, NPV, accuracy rate when RUT test read at 10 minutes were {68.2 %( 52.3 – 80.9)}, {100 %( 88.0 – 100)}, {100% (85.9 – 100)}, {72.0% (57.3 – 83.3)} and 82.5%. At 30 min {84.1% (69.3 – 92.8)}, {100% (88.0 – 100)}, {100% (88.3 – 100)}, {83.7% (68.7 – 92.7)} and 91.3%. At 1 hour {88.6% (74.6 – 95.7)},  {94.4% (80.0 – 99.0)}, {95.1% (82.2 – 99.2)}, {87.2 (71.8 – 95.2)} and 91.3%. No false positve RUT at 10 and 30 minutes but 2(5.6%) false positve cases when the test read at 1 hour. Good positve predicton of RUT read at 30 and 60 minutes (Kappa coefcient 0.83). We concluded that the most appropriate tme point at which to read the positve RUT test is at 30 minute when there is maximal agreement in specifcity and minimal gain in sensitvity by reading the test beyond this tme.Key Words: H. pylori, RUT