Antimalarial

Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young children and pregnant women. While many treatments, including for severe malaria, continue to depend on therapies deriving historically from the injectable drugsquinine and artesunate, the development of drug resistance in the parasite has necessitated the development new antimalarial therapies. Though antimalarial drugs have repeatedly been observed to elicit resistance in the malaria parasite—including for combination therapies featuring artemisinin, where resistance has previously been observed in Southeast Asia, Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) have remained the foundational treatment for falciparum malaria globally as of 2024. Incidence and distribution of the disease ("malaria burden") is expected to remain high, globally, for many years to come. Despite positive outcomes from various modern treatments, serious side effects have been seen to affect some individuals taking standard doses (e.g., retinopathy with chloroquine, acute haemolytic anaemia with tafenoquine).