Plant products in the treatment and control of filariasis and other helminth infections and assay systems for antifilarial/anthelmintic activity

Abstract

Lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, loaisis and other helminth infections cause serious health problems especially in resource-limited tropical and subtropical developing countries of the world and more than 2 billion people are infected with at least one helminth species. From times immemorial, man looked up to plant kingdom in search of anthelmintics, antifilarials and remedies for the parasite induced health problems. Although more than 50% of drugs in modern medicine are derived from plants or leads from plants, a success story of plant-based anthelmintic or antifilarial is yet to be told. In the last 5 decades, more than 100 plant products were reported to be beneficial in the treatment or control of these parasitic infections but they could not be developed in to viable drugs for a variety of reasons. This review focuses on the plant products reported to be useful in the control and treatment of human helminth infections with main emphasis on filariasis and the in vitro and in vivo systems available for assaying the activity.