title: Visceral leishmaniasis treatment: What do we have, what do we need and how to deliver it?
abstract: Leishmaniasis is one of the most neglected tropical disease in terms of drug discovery and development. Most antileishmanial drugs are highly toxic, present resistance issues or require hospitalization, being therefore not adequate to the field. Recently improvements have been achieved by combination therapy, reducing the time and cost of treatment. Nonetheless, new drugs are still urgently needed. In this review, we describe the current visceral leishmaniasis (VL) treatments and their limitations. We also discuss the new strategies in the drug discovery field including the development and implementation of high-throughput screening (HTS) assays and the joint efforts of international teams to deliver clinical candidates.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3), Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
authors.forename: Lucio H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Freitas-Junior
authors.affiliation: Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DND i ), 15 Chemin Louis Dunant, Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chatelain
authors.affiliation: Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3), Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
authors.forename: Helena Andrade
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3), Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
authors.forename: Jair L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Siqueira-Neto
keywords: Drug discovery; High throughput screening; Leishmania; Leishmaniasis