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Review
. 2020 Jan 19;5(1):14.
doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed5010014.

The Drugs of Sleeping Sickness: Their Mechanisms of Action and Resistance, and a Brief History

Harry P De Koning  1
Affiliations
Review

The Drugs of Sleeping Sickness: Their Mechanisms of Action and Resistance, and a Brief History

Harry P De Koning. Trop Med Infect Dis. .

Abstract

With the incidence of sleeping sickness in decline and genuine progress being made towards the WHO goal of eliminating sleeping sickness as a major public health concern, this is a good moment to evaluate the drugs that 'got the job done': their development, their limitations and the resistance that the parasites developed against them. This retrospective looks back on the remarkable story of chemotherapy against trypanosomiasis, a story that goes back to the very origins and conception of chemotherapy in the first years of the 20 century and is still not finished today.

Keywords: drug resistance; drugs; history; human African trypanosomiasis; sleeping sickness; trypanosoma brucei.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural formulas of trypanocides.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural formulas of trypanocides.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Structural formulas of trypanocides.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of a T. brucei trypomastigote, indicating some of the structures and proteins involved in the uptake or mechanism of action of trypanocides.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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