Critical Examination of Approaches Exploited to Assess the Effectiveness of Transmission-Blocking Drugs for Malaria

In the absence of clinically proven vaccines and emerging resistance to common antimalarials and insecticides, the onus of interrupting the life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum, is upon the transmission-blocking drugs. Current transmission-blocking drug primaquine finds its use restricted because of associated hemolytic toxicity issues in Glucose-6-Phosphate-Dehydrogenase deficient individuals. This article provides an extensive review of the assays used by the investigators to evaluate the transmission-blocking activity of drugs. Furthermore, limitations in existing transmission-blocking assessment approaches/studies are also covered in detail. This review is expected to help in the identification of lacunae in current understanding of transmission-blocking strategies, which are hindering our efforts to develop sustainable and effective transmission-blocking interventions.