Background

Malaria, with AIDS and tuberculosis, is one of the three major communicable diseases linked to poverty. The unavailability of a vaccine and the spread and intensifica-tion of drug resistance over the past 15–20 years have led to a dramatic decline in the efficacy of the most affordable anti-malarial drugs. Because of their importance to humans since ancient times, plants have been the object of relevant scientific investigations to identify bioactive anti-plasmodial compounds [1], a view supported by the fact that natural products have become effective drugs against malaria. In addition to anti-malarial drugs, plant constituents are of interest for application as insecticides and repel-lents. Among plant-derived compounds, essential oils (EOs) received great attention due to the variety of thei