Priming the antimalarial pipeline

Abstract

Malaria was treated with the chloroquine and pyrimethamine-sulphadoxine for much of the twentieth century. However, these drugs progressively succumbed to the appearance and spread of resistance. And although currently, artemisin-based combination therapies continue to be efficient against the disease, the prospect of drug resistance remains. This paper presents the results of two studies (Gamo et al., Guigemde et al.) that screened for compounds that could inhibit the asexual blood-stage of Plasmodium falciparum. It also presents the clinical use and drug resistance data of existing antimalarials.