Preface

Protozoan parasites are a worldwide public health problem that challenge the immune system of millions of humans and non-humans animals, resulting in devastating social and economic consequences. Until now, chemotherapy is central to the control of most of the infections caused by these parasites in both medical and veterinary practice. Chemotherapy control, has been mainly compromised by the development of parasite drug resistance, drugs severe side-effects and toxicity, low to medium efficacy, high cost drugs, and the introduction of counterfeit drugs that are a threat to public health with many overwhelming effects for patients; consequently, the search for new antiprotozoan drugs is an urgent need.

The development of new drugs against these parasites, has been largely neglected because they mainly affect people living in extreme poverty with limited or non-marketing possibilities; for these reasons, in some endemic countries, herbal medicine has become an important and sustainable source of control.

This eBook is an effort of researches who work in the field of antiparasitic experimental chemotherapy and medical parasitology and it summarizes the progresses made in the field of chemotherapy and drug research against protozoan diseases. Synthetic and natural treatments to control Chagas disease, malaria, toxoplasmosis and other parasitic diseases, are discussed in order to open the possibility for applying these scientific progress in the field of antiprotozoan chemotherapy.

The editor and the authors would like to thank Bentham Science Publishers for providing the opportunity to bring this knowledge to the scientific community and to the general public.