Chloroquine-Resistance Malaria

Abstract

Malaria is the major health problem in developing countries including India. Resistance to antimalarial drugs is proving to be a challenging problem in malaria control in most parts of the world. Chloroquine resistance has emerged independently less than ten times in the past 50 years and the most of the chloroquine resistance targets are localized in the acid food vacuole of the malaria. Resistance to P.falciparum may be due to increased capacity of the parasite to expel chloroquine to reach levels required for inhibition of the heme-polymerization. Resistance to sufadoxime-pyrimethamine, quinine and mefloquine is much higher than the chloroquine. Increased chloroquine treatment failure has led to change the drug policy to artesunate combined therapy (ACT) as first line of malaria treatment. The artesunate-based combination currently used in the established multidrug-resistant areas on different parts of world. With emerging resistance there is a urgent need of a fully synthetic drug such as arterolane, which has an activity profile that is similar to that of the artemisinins, provides an important potential in such an endeavor.