Abstract
Intestinal helminth infections of livestock and humans are predominantly controlled by treatment with three classes of synthetic drugs, but some livestock nematodes have now developed resistance to all three classes and there are signs that human hookworms are becoming less responsive to the two classes (benzimidazoles and the nicotinic acetylcholine agonists) that are licensed for treatment of humans. New anthelmintics are urgently needed, and whilst development of new synthetic drugs is ongoing, it is slow and there are no signs yet that novel compounds operating through different modes of action, will be available on the market in the current decade. The development of naturally-occurring compounds as medicines for human use and for treatment of animals is fraught with problems. In this paper we review the current status of cysteine proteinases from fruits and protective plant latices as novel anthelmintics, we consider some of the problems inherent in taking laboratory findings and those derived from folk-medicine to the market and we suggest that there is a wealth of new compounds still to be discovered that could be harvested to benefit humans and livestock.
Highlights
Intestinal nematodes are extremely important pathogens of domestic livestock, especially of sheep, goats and cattle
Global estimates of disability adjusted life years lost to infection are almost 5 million with some 3 billion people around the world believed to carry some of the species involved [3,4]
(page number not for citation purposes) http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/1/1/29 our knowledge, there is only one reference to the effect of cysteine proteinases (CP) on parasites of ruminants, in which the animals in question were treated orally with papaya latex [73], but this publication is unavailable in the West
Summary
Intestinal nematodes are extremely important pathogens of domestic livestock, especially of sheep, goats and cattle. Effect on helminth infections in humans Indications that papaya latex and papain are active in this respect go back to the early 1800s, when they
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