ABSTRACT

For the foreseeable future, chemotherapy and impregnated bed nets will remain the two most useful tools for the control of the deadly disease malaria, which kills 2 million people each year. Paradoxically, only approximately 10 antimalarial drugs are available on the market for the prevention or the treatment of malaria, and the development of new ones is costly and time-consuming. The use of chemotherapy for controlling the pathogenic organism is further restricted by the development of drug resistance. As there is no longer a single drug that can prevent or cure all cases of malaria, researchers have reconsidered the entire therapeutic approach for the control of this old and most devastating tropical disease. A more flexible attitude should be adopted to this end. Whereas the urgent need for the discovery or design of new antimalarial drugs with different mechanisms of action is recognised, plant-based antimalarials form the basis of medicines used by the majority of people in most regions afflicted with malaria. Many have been shown in experimental studies to have antiplasmodial effects, and as such, they may offer viable alternatives to prescription drugs in the treatment of this life-threatening disease.