New Approaches for the Identification of Drug Targets in Protozoan Parasites - International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology - page 359

Table 7.1 Overview of the most prominent diseases caused by protozoa and drugs
that are currently used for chemotherapy and their approximate time of introduction.
Sources: WHO ( www.who.int ) , NIH ( www.nlm.nih.gov )

Causative
agent

Estimated
cases Disease Drugs Introduction

Malaria Plasmodium

falciparum

250 (×10 6 /
year)

Quinine Seventeenth

century

Quinacrine 1930

Chloroquine Around 1945

Mefloquine 1985

Artemisinine and
derivatives

1972

Doxycycline <1990

Proguanil
(+Atovaquone)

1946

Giardiasis Giardia lam-

blia

200 Quinacrine 1941

Metronidazole,
tinidazole

1961

Furazolidone >1970

Nitazoxanide 1996

Paromomycine 1960

Leishmaniasis Leishmania

sp.

1-2 Pentamidine 1930

Liposomal
amphotericin B

1990

Antimony-(V)-
compounds

1950

African try-
panosomiasis
(sleeping
sickness)

Trypanosoma
brucei

0.01 Pentamidine 1930

Nifurtimox-
eflornithine

2009

Chagas disease Trypanosoma
cruzi

Ten currently
infected
(chronic
disease)

Benznidazole
together with
nifurtimox

1980

apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii infects an estimated 25% of the popula-
tion, and thus is one of the most successful parasites worldwide ( Innes and
Vermeulen, 2007 ). While pregnant women and immunocompromised
persons represent the main risk groups, there is an increasing number of
reports concerning clinical toxoplasmosis in immunocompetent individuals
( McAllister, 2005 ) where up to two-thirds of infections cannot be explained
by risk factors such as consuming raw or undercooked meat or poor kitchen
hygiene ( Petersen et al., 2010 ). The current treatment options for toxoplas-
mosis are limited and include only few compounds such as pyrimethamine,