Antiparasitic
Class of medications
- 2 min read
- 4 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Medication, Parasitic worm and Amoeba
Broad-spectrum antiparasitics, analogous to broad-spectrum antibiotics for bacteria, are antiparasitic drugs with efficacy in treating a wide range of parasitic infections caused by parasites from different classes.
Types
Broad-spectrum
Antiprotozoals
- Melarsoprol (for treatment of sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei)
- Eflornithine (for sleeping sickness)
- Metronidazole (for vaginitis caused by Trichomonas)
- Tinidazole (for intestinal infections caused by Giardia lamblia)
- Miltefosine (for the treatment of visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis, currently undergoing investigation for Chagas disease)
Antihelminthic
Antinematodes
- Mebendazole (for most nematode infections)
- Pyrantel pamoate (for most nematode infections)
- Thiabendazole (for roundworm infections)
- Diethylcarbamazine (for treatment of Lymphatic filariasis)
- Ivermectin (for prevention of river blindness)
- Fenbendazole
Anticestodes
- Niclosamide (for tapeworm infections)
- Praziquantel (for tapeworm infections)
- Albendazole (broad spectrum)
Antitrematodes
- Praziquantel
Antiamoebics
Antifungals
- Fumagillin (for microsporidiosis)
Sign in to keep reading
3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Medical uses
Antiparasitics treat parasitic diseases, which impact an estimated 2 billion people.
Administration
Antiparastics may be given via a variety of routes depending on the specific medication, including oral, topical, and intravenous.
Resistance to antiparasitics has been a growing concern, especially in veterinary medicine. The Egg hatch assay can be used to determine whether a parasite causing an infection has become resistant to standard drug treatments.
Drug development history
Early antiparasitics were ineffective, frequently toxic to patients, and difficult to administer due to the difficulty in distinguishing between the host and the parasite.
Between 1975 and 1999 only 13 of 1,300 new drugs were antiparasitics, which raised concerns that insufficient incentives existed to drive development of new treatments for diseases that disproportionately target low-income countries. This led to new public sector and public-private partnerships (PPPs), including investment by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Between 2000 and 2005, twenty new antiparasitic agents were developed or in development. Metal-containing compounds are the subject of another avenue of approach.
Research
In the last decades, triazolopyrimidines and their metal complexes have been looked at as an alternative drug to the existing commercial antimonials, searching for a decrease in side effects and the development of parasite drug resistance.