Title:Articulate Chemotherapeutic Strategies for the Development of Effective
Drugs against a Fatal Disease, Visceral Leishmaniasis
Volume: 21
Issue: 4
Author(s): Awanish Kumar*
Affiliation:
- Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, 492010 (CG), India
Keywords:
Visceral leishmaniasis, current arsenals, modified therapy, future chemotherapeutic strategies, new antileishmanials, fetal disease.
Abstract: Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) control relies mainly on chemotherapy in the absence of no
effective vaccines. However, available anti-VL drugs are limited in number, having toxicity issues,
adverse reactions, low efficacy, and resistance observed against antileishmanial. A significant decrease
in efficacy (~tenfold increase in dosage and duration) was reported against the usual treatment
with Pentavalent antimonials (the most recommended antileishmanial drug discovered 90
years ago). Amphotericin B is the second line of treatment but limits wider use due to its high cost.
Pentamidine is another anti-VL drug, but its therapeutic efficacy has decreased significantly in different
areas. These conventional therapeutics for VL have become almost outdated due to a significant
increase in therapeutic failure in terms of percentage. Due to this, the search for an effective
future anti-VL drug spans several decades, and now it is in high demand in the current situation.
Some conventional therapeutics are modified, but they are also not satisfactory. Therefore, this article
aimed to discuss conventional and modified therapeutics while emphasizing innovative chemotherapeutic
measures against VL that could speed up the slow pace of antileishmanial drugs and
overcome the drug resistance problem in the future.
