Antifungal and Antiparasitic Drug Delivery

Book excerpt: Fungal and parasitic diseases affect more than one billion people across the globe. This is one-sixth of the world´s population, mostly located in developing countries. The lack of effective and safe treatments, combined with inefficient diagnosis, leads to serious chronic illness or even death. There is a discrepancy between the rate of drug resistance and the development of new medicines. Formulation of antifungal and antiparasitic drugs adapted to different administration routes is challenging, bearing in mind the poor water solubility that limits their bioavailability and efficacy. There is an unmet clinical need to develop vaccines, novel formulations and drug delivery strategies that can improve the bioavailability and therapeutic effects by enhancing their dissolution, increasing their chemical potency, stabilizing the drug and targeting high concentrations of the drug to infection sites. This Special Issue includes ten research articles of antifungal and antiparasitic drug delivery systems.