Malaria screening

When advising potential travelers on prophylaxis for malaria, be aware of the incidence of chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum malaria and the countries where it is prevalent. In patients who have P. vivax or P. ovale malaria (note that some patients can have P. falciparum and one of these species), following the treatment of the acute phase of malaria and screening for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, patients should receive a regimen of primaquine for 14 days to ensure eradication of the hypnozoite stage of P. vivax or P. ovale. For detailed recommendations for prevention of malaria go to www.cdc.gov/travel/. 

All travelers to endemic areas should be advised to remain in well-screened areas, to wear clothes that cover most of the body, and sleep in mosquito nets. Travelers should adhere to malaria chemoprophylaxis regimens and carry the insect repellant DEET (N, N,-diethylmetatoluamide) or other insect sprays containing DEET for use in mosquito-infested areas. 

Libraries of hundreds to thousands of spatially separate inhibitors have been prepared and screened to identify small molecule inhibitors of the human protease cathepsin D and the essential malarial proteases, plasmepsins I and II. The best inhibitors do not incorporate any amino adds and possess high affinity (Kj<5 nM).1241 Furthermore, these lead compounds were optimized by combinatorial methods for good physicochemical properties and minimal binding to human serum albumin. The optimized inhibitors effectively block cathepsin D-mediated proteolysis in human hippocampyl slices and are currently being used to evaluate the therapeutic potential of cathepsin D inhibition in the treatment of Alzheimer s disease. Additionally, the plasmepsin inhibitors serve as promising leads for the treatment of malaria. 

Of interest is a recently described yeast-based, nutrient-dependent viability screen for inhibitors of protozoal dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) [43,44], Antiprotozoal activity of DHFR inhibitors is well known, and DHFR- yeast complemented with the DHFR gene derived from the malaria parasite P. falciparum have been used to characterize the molecular pharmacology of resistance to the antimalarial DHFR inhibitors pyrimethamine and cycloguanil [45,46], The subsequent development of a screen was based on the demonstration that the protozoal... 

Malaria is one of the oldest parasitic diseases. The difficulty of malaria control is aggravated by the appearance of strains of Plasmodium falciparum resistant to antimalarials, as well as resistance of the vector mosquitoes to DDT and other insecticides. The molecule quinine isolated from the bark of the Cinchona sp. tree, represents the model for the synthesis of the majority of drugs currently used for malarial treatment [194], Davioud-Charvet et al [206] describe the screening of a library of... 

This review has shown that many plants from Africa and other continents have been reported to be used to treat malaria in traditional medicine. Modem in vitro screens against the P. falciparum has confirmed the antimalarial properties for many of these plants and their extracts and clearly given the magnitude of the problem and the national costs due to malaria illness, death and suffering, the use of medicinal plants either in traditional manners and/or as leads for new compounds that may serve in the future for new anti-malarial drags presents scientific opportunities. 

A screen against the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum identified two subfamilies of purines with good activities (nanomolar) against the parasite but modest CDK activities, raising the possibility to achieve a good therapeutic window... 

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