Control of malaria by bio-therapeutics and drug delivery systems

Abstract

Malaria is a ubiquitous disease that can affect more than 40% of the world’s population who live with some risk of contracting this disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently highlighted the high spread of this disease in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the considerable fall in mortality rate over the past decade, the development of resistance against main treatment strategies still exists. This problem has provoked scientific efforts to develop various treatment strategies including use of vaccines, drug delivery systems, and biotherapeutics approaches. A vaccination strategy is being implemented to trigger direct clearance of the causative parasites from the human host. However, the complex life-cycle of Plasmodium parasites with continuous antigenic mutations has partly hindered this approach so far. The application of different types of drug delivery systems for the delivery of antimalarial drugs is also being considered in order to improve the efficacy, pharmacokinetics, tolerability, and reduce toxicity of existing anti-malarial drugs. A third approach has emerged from the high success of antibodies to treat complex diseases like cancer and autoimmune diseases. Various antibody engineering methods and formats have been proposed to tackle the notable sophisticated lifecycle of malaria. Within the malaria research field, the characteristics of these diverse treatment strategies, individually, are broadly acknowledged. This review article considers the current status of these approaches and the future outlook.