Host-directed therapies for infectious diseases: current status, recent progress, and future prospects.

ABSTRACT: Despite extensive global efforts in the fight against killer infectious diseases, they still cause one in four deaths worldwide and are important causes of long-term functional disability arising from tissue damage. The continuing epidemics of tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, and influenza, and the emergence of novel zoonotic pathogens represent major clinical management challenges worldwide. Newer approaches to improving treatment outcomes are needed to reduce the high morbidity and mortality caused by infectious diseases. Recent insights into pathogen-host interactions, pathogenesis, inflammatory pathways, and the host's innate and acquired immune responses are leading to identification and development of a wide range of host-directed therapies with different mechanisms of action. Host-direct

SUBMITTER: Zumla A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7164794 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature