Treatment of giardiasis: current status and future directions.

Treatment of giardiasis: current status and future directions.

Watkins Richard R; Eckmann Lars

Current infectious disease reports

2014

2014-02

Giardiasis is a common yet neglected cause of diarrheal illness worldwide. Antimicrobial therapy is usually but not always effective and drug resistance has become an increasing concern. Several promising drug candidates have been recently identified that can overcome antibiotic resistance in Giardia. These include derivatives of 5-nitroimidazoles and benzimidazoles, as well as hybrid compounds created from combinations of different antigiardial drugs. High-throughput screening of large compound libraries has been a productive strategy for identifying antigiardial activity in drugs already approved for other indications, e.g. auranofin. This article reviews the current treatment of giardiasis, mechanisms of resistance, advances in drug and vaccine development, and directions for further research on this significant human pathogen.

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

396–396

2

16