Global anthelmintic chemotherapy programs: learning from history

May 2001 was a landmark in the control of helminth infections. For the first time, the global community recognized that tools existed to deal with some of the commonest infections on the planet. Yet, many of the concepts had been identified nearly a century before, and subsequently largely forgotten. The lessons of the past have much to impart, and recent work has strengthened the evidence and identified the tools to make global control programs feasible. The challenge will now be to make it happen, and some of the problems ahead are truly massive.

PZQ Therapy: How Close are we in the Development of Effective Alternative Anti-schistosomal Drugs?

Today schistosomiasis, caused mainly by the three major schistosome species (S. mansoni, S. haematobium and S. japonicum), has for many decades and still continues to be on a rapid and swift rise globally, claiming thousands of lives every year and leaving 800 million people at the risk of infection. Due to the high prevalence of this disease and the steady increase in the infection rates, praziquantel (PZQ) remains the only effective drug against this acute disease although it has no effect on the juvenile schistosome parasite. However, no significant approaches have been made in recent years in the discovery of new or alternative drugs and unfortunately, resistance to this drug has been reported in some parts of the world. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a new drug for this debilitating disease. In this review, a brief history of past, present, and new promising anti-schistosomal drugs is presented.

Medical parasitology in China: an historical perspective

Traditional Chinese anthelmintics prove to be interesting because social, political, cultural, psychological and philosophical factors could affect them. A review of the ideas on the origin of parasitic infection and the historical development of medical parasitology in China is attempted to aid in the elucidation of the rationale of traditional Chinese anthelminthic treatment.

Western Anthelmintics in Early Twentieth-Century China Colonial Practices and Knowledge on "Tropical Diseases" of the In/between

Protestant (medical) missionaries were the main proponents of Western medicine in China after the Opium Wars. Several studies have highlighted how they used spectacular surgery as a means of gaining public trust. As well as surgery, they also administered anthelmintic drugs such as santonin as a tool of persuasion and conversion. Many anthelmintic drugs of the European materia medica had a colonial history. My paper analyses how coloniality materialised in medical practice and anthelmintics in China. For the late nineteenth century, I will examine the colonial practices in which the drug santonin was involved. At the time, santonin was the drug of choice for treating roundworm. In the early twentieth century, medical missionaries became involved in parasitological research on parasitic worms such as hookworm and Fasciolopsis buski. For this period, I will explore how new knowledge about anthelmintics emerged in the scattered knowledge space of China, and how it related to colonialism and imperialism.