Current Medicines for Malaria Including Resistance Issues

Malaria is an old disease and continues to be a major health problem in many countries. In spite of decrement in morbidity and mortality due to malaria, the transmission is still active throughout the world. Hence, appropriate treatment is needed to handle malaria in addition to preventive measures. However, unavailability of new drugs and the occurrence of resistant Plasmodium strains toward many conventional antimalarial drugs including artemisinins are the major obstacles in combating malaria infection. Thus, experts from all directions of our planet are in search of novel compounds, and many new chemical entities, such as artefenomel, ferroquine, KAE609, KAF156, DSM265, methylene blue, MMV39048, DDD107498, SJ733, and MMV253, have been under drug development process. While many agents are in the pipeline, most of them are not able to kill both gametocytes and hypnozoites.