Tropical diseases encompass all diseases that occur solely, or principally, in the
tropics. In practice, the term is often taken to refer to infectious diseases that
thrive in hot, humid conditions, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis,
onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, and
dengue. Neglected tropical diseases affect about 1 billion people, primarily poor
populations living in tropical and subtropical climates, and in 2008, malaria caused
nearly one million deaths, mostly among African children (WHO, 2011)[*]. There is an urgent need to discover new treatments against these ailments or to
kill their vectors because of the development of resistance and/or the side effects
or costs of available treatments. Furthermore, as people suffering from these diseases
are often from developing countries and have low incomes, the economical interest
is not high for the research and development of new molecules. Therefore, most people
still rely on traditional medicine for their prevention or treatment. As plants are
a recognized source of new medicines with great potential, Planta Medica
has decided to publish a special issue on natural products and tropical diseases to
report advances in this area. Reviews compiled in this special issue deal with different
aspects of prevention and treatment of tropical diseases as well as tests and targets
for the discovery of such compounds from nature. They also include overviews of effective
extracts, fractions, or isolated compounds from plants or marine sources, or improved
traditional phytomedicines used against well-known diseases as malaria and others
as Buruli ulcer.
The editors are grateful to the Editorial Board of Planta Medica, to Thieme Publishers, and to all authors and scientists who agreed to contribute
to this special issue.
Joanne Bero and Joëlle Quetin-Leclercq
