Author(s) :

Muhammad Umar Hayat, Muhammad Hassan Rehman, Muhammad Adnan Sabir Mughal, Tooba Islam.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Protozoan parasites are unicellular, eukaryotic and heterotrophic organisms which get entry in the appropriate host after responding to the cues that indicate the presence of host. These cues can be generated by the host itself, any byproduct of the host or the plants consumed by the host. The host range of protozoan parasites i.e., Plasmodium, Trypanosoma, Leishmania, Babesia, Theileria, Giardia etc. ranges from companion animals to bovines and humans posing a serious threat to these species. Among these, Plasmodium causes a life-threatening disease in human and is transmitted by the bite of Anopheles mosquito. Trypanosoma and Leishmania are responsible for causing African Sleeping Sickness, Chagas disease and tropical and visceral Leishmaniasis. Similarly in bovines, Babesia causes hemoglobinuria which may lead to death of animal. It is the need of hour to control these deadly protozoan parasites through effective control strategies i.e., vaccination. The development of DNA vaccines is considered as a dynamic field of research and have been used in the last 15 years offering a new alternative for the control of protozoal infections. Vaccination against these deadly pathogens have not been proved effective yet because of multiple reasons including immunological non-responsiveness to individual vaccine antigens, antigenic variation and polymorphism, immune deviation because of maternal immunity, parasite-induced apoptosis of immune effector and memory cells and alterations of dendritic cell function.

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