Trypanosomiasis, parasitic disease

Parasitic diseases, such as trypanosomiasis, malaria, and leishmaniasis, affect himdreds of millions people around the world, mainly in underdeveloped countries. They are also the most common opportunistic infections that affect patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Globally, malaria occupies the first place, but in Latin America, Chagas disease (American Trypanosomiasis) is the most relevant parasitic disease that produces morbidity and mortahty in low-income individuals. 

Space constraints do not allow detailed discussions of the world of parasites, and clinicians and students are directed to some excellent resources for further details on parasites and parasitic diseases.1,2 Discussion in this chapter will include those parasitic diseases that are more likely to be seen in the United States and will include gastrointestinal parasites (primarily giardiasis and amebiasis), protozoan infections (malaria and South American trypanosomiasis), some common helminthic... 

The second parasitic disease we want to consider is sleeping sickness, or African trypanosomiasis, as it is also known. Sleeping sickness results from an infection by protozoa called trypanosomes that are closely related to Leishmania, and, like leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness is spread by flies. On a more general level, however, the two diseases seem quite distinct. Leishmaniasis takes several forms, only one of which is fatal, but untreated sleeping sickness invariably leads to death. Leishmaniasis is a menace in much of the... 

Under the intellectual leadership of Paul Ehrlich, the dye industry provided arsphenamine, the first effective agent against syphilis. Syphilis is an infectious disease spread by sexual contact. It is caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum. Syphilis runs various courses over many years and can result in death if not treated. Penicillins are now the dmgs of choice for syphilis. Chemists discovered two other medicinal agents in the early years of the twentieth century tryparsamide for trypanosomiasis, a parasitic disease, and oxophenarsine, also for syphilis. 

Various 9-A),]V-diethylaminopropyl-l,2,3,4-tetrahydrocarbazoles have been tested against Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis), a human tropical parasitic disease. It was found that 8-chloro- and/or 8-methoxy-substituted analogs may have promise as trypanocidal substances (479). 

Quinolines represent an important class of heterocycles, and the quinoline skeleton is present in various natural products, especially in alkaloids. Among them quinine is an active ingredient for the treatment of malaria [286]. Despite its relatively low efficacy and tolerability, quinine still plays an important role in the treatment of multiresistant malaria, one of the world s most devastating infectious diseases [287]. Therefore, the design of many drugs and affordable chemotherapies are based upon synthetic quinoline derivatives, such as chloroquine, mefloquine or quinacrine [288-292]. In addition, chimanine alkaloids, are also effective against parasitic diseases such as leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis [293-295]. Besides,... 

In a parallel study, we have investigated the activity of metal complexes in parasitic diseases and, especially, trypanosomiasis, responsible for sleeping sickness in man. Of the parasitic diseases, this does not now present a major problem, compared to malaria, filariasis and schistosomiasis, but the prevalence of the disease has increased in latter years due to dramatic changes in the political and economic climate in the tropical areas (48). A number of platinum derivatives has been found to be active vitro and vivo against rhodesiense and the platinum complexes, as a family, may be considered active trypanocides... 

Trypanosomiasis is a vector-bome parasitic disease. Trypanosoma, the parasites concerned, are protozoa transmitted to humans by tsetse fiies msind. There have been three severe q>i-demics in Afiica over the last century. At present the disease has reappeared in endemic form in several foci. According to the World H th Oiganization (WHO), 60 million people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are infeaed. Sleeping sickness has become the fiist or second greatest cause of mortality, ahead of HFV/AIDS. 

Introduction - The recent literature contains many citations to parasite-related diseases and problems pertaining thereto. In a recent paper several areas requiring intensified research and the development of new or improved drugs were identified. In the past year, a single periodical has carried papers on amebicides, anthelmintics, malaria,amebic and bacterial dysentery, intestinal helminths and filariasis, trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and immunodiagnosis of parasitic diseases. Considerable information relating to current treatment of these afflictions may be found in these papers as well as in a report called "Drugs for Parasitic Infections. ... 

Protozoan pathogens represent a potential threat for a vast number of people worldwide. They are causative agents of some of the most detrimental parasitic diseases, such as malaria, human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), leishmaniasis, Chagas... 

Efrapeptins are enzymatic inhibitors that can be used to treat parasitic diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis (Nagaraj et al, 2001). 

African sleeping sickness, or African trypanosomiasis, is caused by protists (single-celled eukaryotes) called trypanosomes (Fig. 1). This disease (and related trypanosome-caused diseases) is medically and economically significant in many developing nations. Until recently, the disease was virtually incurable. Vaccines are ineffective, because the parasite has a novel mechanism to evade the host immune system. 

American trypanosomiasis or Chagas disease, named after Carlos Chagas, who first described it in 1909, exists primarily only on the American Continent. It is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, a flagellate protozoan parasite. Chagas disease represents the leading cause of cardiac lesions in young, economically productive adults in the endemic countries in Latin America (Moncayo and Silveira, 2009). 

The minimal infective dose of the parasite needed to acquire Chagas disease is not established in humans. It is known that, for African trypanosomiasis (or sleeping sickness), the minimal infective dose is 300-450 metacyclic trypomastigotes (Alvarenga and Marsden, 1975). 

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