ABSTRACT
Human parasitic diseases constitute major infectious pathologies responsible for millions of deaths every year, mainly of children, all over the world. In contrast to the recent progress in the development of new drugs and vaccines for bacterial and viral diseases, most of the antiparasite drugs still in use today were discovered in the early decades of this century. These drugs were identified by an empirical approach and the mode of action remains unknown for many of them. For some parasitic diseases the situation is worse now than it was 15 years ago. For instance, about 25% of Leishmania strains are resistant to antimonials in India; the advent of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum led to a major public health problem.
