A review of new strategies to combat malaria resistance: The essential oils approach

Essential oils have been a subject of interest to pharmaceutical researchers for over a century but very recently has evoked much more interests due to their widely reported advantages. One of the advantages of essential oils is the ability to resist and reverse resistance. Malaria is a serious health concern globally with almost half of the world population at risk. Although several investments have been made in antimalarial drugs research and development, malaria continues to pose as a global threat. This is attributable to the high propensity of malaria parasites to develop resistance to the various treatment options. It has however, become important to seek for alternative or new strategies for treating malaria without the risks of malaria resistance. This research is aimed towards reviewing the potentials of harnessing the advantages of essential oils in the treatment of malaria and combating malaria resistance. The various novel drug delivery systems for formulating essentials into dosage forms were also reviewed. It is the view of the authors that the use of essential oils in the treatment of malaria and combating of malaria resistance hold great promises and potentials and therefore recommend that essential oils with scientifically proven antimalarial activity should be formulated as either a nanoemulsion, liposome, NLC, or SLN. This will in addition to protecting the essential oils from rapid degradation, improve their efficacy and effectiveness.