Antiprotozoals for Treating Toxoplasmosis: A Broad Look - Essay Sample

Introduction

Antiprotozoals are used in treating different illnesses ranging from toxoplasmosis, malaria, and leishmaniasis (Drug Office, 2013). This paper will broadly look at antiprotozoals for treating toxoplasmosis disease. Toxoplasmosis is an opportunistic infection caused by toxoplasma gondii. Toxoplasmosis mostly affects people with compromised immunity, especially those with AIDs (Black, 2018). Antiprotozoal drugs belong in two distinct classes. These are antimalarial and miscellaneous antiprotozoal. The recent discovery of antiprotozoal changes the structure of analog medications to develop organic compounds that can treat five courses of disease. These are malaria, giardiasis, trichomoniasis, leishmaniasis, and trypanosomiasis (Lee, 2019).

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Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis is an opportunistic infection that mostly affects people with AIDs because of compromised immunity. Toxoplasmosis is caused by a protozoan parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. This parasite is intracellular and was discovered in 1908, and from 1930 to 1940, it became prevalent as a human disease. Toxoplasmosis infection mostly affects warm-blooded animals across the world (Black, 2018). The infection is transmitted through taking raw or undercooked meat, oocysts ingestion from the environment, and pregnant women passing to their unborn fetuses.

Mode of Action

Pyrimethamine antiprotozoals treat toxoplasmosis by inhibiting enzymes for biosynthesis of pyrimidine in parasites and dihydropteroate synthase. These prevent the survival of parasite and their replication (Montazer, 2018). Pyrimethamine is a pyrimidine-2, four diamines that taxes position 5 in the p-chlorophenyl group, and in the ethyl group is at position 6. It is an antagonist of folic acid in treating toxoplasmosis). SARs of the drug predicts the biological structure of molecules of diseases (Khan & Khan, 2018).

Difference between Recent and Analog AntiprotozoalsMicroorganisms causing protozoan infections are evolving; hence the analog antiprotozoals are not working effectively because of increased resistance. In contrast, novel drugs have been altered pharmacologically and structurally to develop organic compounds (Lee et al., 2019). Theses organic compounds can eliminate protozoa infections, thus improving the health outcomes of the affected population.

References

Black, A. T. (2018). Drugs containing antiprotozoa. In Annual Side Effects (Vol. 40, pp. 337-343). Elsevier.

Drug Office. (2013). Drug Office - Oral Antiprotozoal Drugs. Retrieved 21 May 2020, from https://www.drugoffice.gov.hk/eps/do/en/consumer/news_informations/dm_20.html#b

Lee, S. (2019). Recent Advances in the Discovery of Novel Antiprotozoal Agents. Journal of Molecules, 24(21), 3886.Montazer, M. (2018). Drug resistance in Toxoplasma gondii. Frontiers in microbiology, 9 (3), 2587.

Khan, K., & Khan, W. (2018). Congenital toxoplasmosis: An overview of the neurological and ocular manifestations. Parasitology international, 67(6), 715-721.