Chapters authored
Drug Discovery and Development for Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis: Current Anthelmentics and Compounds in the Pipeline
Soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH), one of 20 neglected tropical diseases, afflicts about a quarter of the world’s population. A handful of medications, albendazole, mebendazole, pyrantel pamoate, levamisole, and ivermectin, have long constituted the cornerstone of therapy for these infections in both humans and animals. The continuous and long-term reliance on these small range of compounds has led to the emergence of drug resistance in many helminthic strains in animals. The threat of resistance also seems inevitable in humans thereby hampering the World Health Organization’s efforts to control or eradicate these neglected tropical illnesses. Hence, there is an urgent need for the discovery and development of new treatment options with broad spectrum activity against various helmintic infections that act via novel mechanisms of action. Different strategies are employed in this endeavor which include the identification of promising compounds from natural and synthetic origin, drug repurposing and modification of existing drugs, and vaccine development. The prospect of a “pan-anthelmintic vaccine” also seems encouraging, despite the various obstacles facing the development of vaccines. Here we discuss drug discovery and development efforts for STH.
Part of the book: Roundworms