(English) Bacteriophages as Antibiotics
Introduction
Bacteria resistant to most or all available antibiotics are causing increasingly serious problems, raising widespread fears of returning to a pre-antibiotic era of untreatable infections and epidemics. Despite intensive work by drug companies, no new classes of antibiotics have been found in the last 30 years. There are hopes that the newfound ability to sequence entire microbial genomes and to determine the molecular bases of pathogenicity will open new avenues for treating infectious disease, but other approaches are also being sought with increasing fervor. One result is a renewed interest in the possibilities of bacteriophage therapy — the harnessing of a specific kind of viruses that attack only bacteria to kill pathogenic microorganisms (cf. Levin and Bull, 1996; Lederberg, 1996; Radetsky, 1996; Barrow and Soothill, 1997).
Phage Therapy on TV (German)
French native Henri Lemaitre is hoping for a cure. A fall from a ladder had tragic consequences for him. He underwent surgery several times and was infected with a life-threatening resistant bacteria in the hospital. No antibiotics were helping. It looks like only an amputation can save Henri Lemaitre. Doctor Alain Dublanchet from Paris is now trying to use Bacteriophages to remove the infection and save Henri Lemaitre.
Antibiotics lead us into death
Stats show hospital infection rise
More people than ever picked up life-threatening infections while spending time in hospitals last year. The number of hospital-acquired infections has doubled from 22,488 to 42,712 in just two years, the Daily Mail reported.
The figures, from the NHS Information Centre, refer to all infections including superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile, plus others such as norovirus and E.coli. Most of those who are affected by them are elderly, which means that their chances of recovery are very limited.
MRSA Big Risk Factor For Children Who Catch Flu
It wasn’t understood exactly why healthy children who fell ill with the H1N1 flu, during the 2009 epidemic, became critically ill. The Children’s Hospital in Boston has found one key risk factor is MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Those carrying the bacteria had eight times the risk of mortality amongst previously healthy children.