Drugs and drug resistance in African trypanosomiasis

Abstract Despite the many decades of use of most of the current trypanocides, we know little of their mode of action. This may in part be because most of these will act on multiple targets once inside the cell, and they derive their selective action on the parasite from selective accumulation by the pathogen. Loss of this capacity for drug uptake by the trypanosome would thus be a major cause for drug resistance. We here discuss the use of current drugs against human and veterinary African trypanosomiasis, the prevalence, causes and mechanisms of drug resistance and new developments in trypanosomiasis therapy such as the introduction of nifurtimox and DB289.