Phage Therapy

Phage Therapy is the use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections. One of the first uses of phage therapy was within veterinary medicine when it was used in mice to treat E. coli infections. The mice that underwent this phage therapy survived the bacterial infection. The majority of publications surrounding the treatment of bacterial infections in humans come from Eastern Europe. Phage therapy has been proven effective in treating staphylococcal lung infections, infections in cystic fibrosis patients, eye infections, neonatal sepsis, urinary tract infections, and surgical wound infections. Advantages of phage therapy is that since bacteriophages only attack the harmful bacteria, the treatment does not result in any unwanted side effects as can be expected by the use of antibiotics. Their selectivity also prevents the development of resistant bacteria. The use of antibiotics cause the bad bacteria to quickly develop a resistance to the treatment to the point where something know as a superbug is created. "Superbug" is used to refer to those bacteria that have become resistant to all of our antibiotic treatments. It is even predicted that by 2050 the causes of human death by superbugs will be greater than that of cancer. Antibiotics are causing bacteria to become more resistant and are creating more superbugs every day. It is happening at an even faster rate due to the antibiotics being used for the slightest condition such as a runny nose, etc. It is also important to realize that it takes 10 or more years to develop a new antibiotic and get FDA approval. Bacteria is evolving to resist antibiotics ever, so it is time that we look into phage therapy as an alternative. Once the harmful bacteria develops a resistance to our antibiotics, we may very well be in the same position we were before the discovery of the antibiotics. With that said, focusing our attention to bacteriophages could be crucial to our survival in the future.

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