**4. Conclusions**

Malaria remains the major public health problem in tropical and subtropical countries of the world. Human malaria is caused by five Plasmodium species, namely *P. falciparum*, *P. malariae*, *P. vivax*, *P. ovale* and *P. knowlesi*. In addition to these parasites, malaria in humans can sometimes arise from zoonotic malaria parasites, which includes *P. inui, P. cynomolgi, P. coatneyi, P. fieldi, P. simiovale, P. simium* and *P. brasilianum.* The plasmodium life cycle involves two hosts (has two parts). In the first part, the parasite infects a vertebrate host such as human being and in the second part, the plasmodium parasites infect the mosquito vector. The malaria parasites differ in their epidemiology, virulence and drug resistance pattern*. P. falciparum is* the deadliest Plasmodium species that causes human malaria. *P. falciparum* accounted for nearly all malarial deaths (99.7%) in 2018. One of the major challenges to control malaria is the emergence and spread of antimalarial drug-resistant plasmodium parasites. The most important Plasmodium parasites (*P. vivax* and *P. falciparum*) have already developed resistance against convectional antimalarial drugs such as chloroquine, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, atovaquone. In response to the evolution of drug resistance Plasmodium parasites, ACTs have been used as first line therapy for treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria since the beginning of 21th century. However, artemisinin resistant *P. falciparum* strains have been recently observed in different parts of the world, which indicates the possibility of the spread of artemisinin resistance to all over the world. Therefore, novel antimalarial drugs have to be searched so as to replace the ACTs if Plasmodium parasites develop resistance to ACTs in the future.
