An Overview on Antifilarial Efficacy of Heterocyclic Motifs Encompassing Synthetic Strategies, SAR and Commercialized Medications

Filariasis is one of the oldest, most dangerous, debilitating, disfiguring diseases and often ignores tropical disorders. It presents with a range of clinical symptoms, a low death rate, and a high morbidity rate, which contributes to social discrimination. This condition has major effects on people's socioeconomic circumstances. This illness is carried by mosquitoes that have spread malaria. Lymphatic filariasis, caused by <i>Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi</i>, and <i>Brugia timori</i>, is a crippling illness with serious social and economic consequences. The infection persisted despite therapy with conventional antifilarial medications such as diethylcarbamazine (DEC), albendazole, and ivermectin, which are mostly microfilaricides. Current treatments (ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine, and albendazole) have limited effectiveness against adult parasites and produce side effects; therefore, innovative antifilarial medications are urgently required. Hence, macrofilaricides, embryostatic agents, and improved microfilaricides are required. The following article discusses the typical synthetic methodologies established for antifilarial activity as well as their marketed pharmaceuticals, which will help researchers, medicinal chemists, and pharmaceutical scientists to develop new and effective antifilarial therapies. This review can help to identify new lead compounds and optimize existing commercial medications to improve their therapeutic efficacy. The majority of the studies addressed in this review concern the forms of filariasis, parasite life cycle, symptoms, medications used to treat filariasis, synthetic schemes, SAR, and results from the reported research.