Is phage therapy promising?

According to the various stakeholders met, and in view of the increasing number of documented cases available, phage therapy appears to be a promising alternative in the treatment of certain bacterial infections, multi-resistant or not.

Is phage therapy currently being used to treat any diseases?

Phages are currently being used therapeutically to treat bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional antibiotics, particularly in Russia and Georgia.

Why doesn’t the US use phage therapy?

Phage therapy isn’t yet approved for people in the United States or in Europe. There has been experimental phage use in a few rare cases only. One reason for this is because antibiotics are more easily available and are considered to be safer to use.

What are phage therapy available in market?

Ongoing clinical trials of phage therapy to cure diseases such as Urinary Tract Infection Bacterial, Prostate Cancer, Acute Tonsillitis, HIV Infection, Wound Infections, Mild Gastrointestinal, Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases, Venous Leg Ulcers, Covid19, Tuberculosis, Cystic Fibrosis, Bacterial Infections and many …

Is phage therapy better than antibiotics?

Phages won’t harm any of your cells except for the bacterial cells that they’re meant to kill. Phage therapy has fewer side effects than antibiotics. On the other hand, most antibiotics have a much wider host range. Some antibiotics can kill a wide range of bacterial species at the same time.

Who invented phage therapy?

Two years later, Felix d’Herelle, a microbiologist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, picked up where Twort left off and first proposed phages as a therapy for human infections.

What are the benefits and limitations of phage therapy?

In terms of “Pros,” for example, phages can be bactericidal, can increase in number over the course of treatment, tend to only minimally disrupt normal flora, are equally effective against antibiotic-sensitive and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often are easily discovered, seem to be capable of disrupting bacterial …

How long does phage therapy last?

TABLE 2

Bacteriophages	Antibiotics
Selecting new phages (e.g., against phage-resistant bacteria) is a relatively rapid process that can frequently be accomplished in days or weeks.	Developing a new antibiotic (e.g., against antibiotic-resistant bacteria) is a time-consuming process and may take several years (16, 51).

Where in the world is phage therapy?

In places such as Georgia and Poland, phage therapy remained active until today, mostly via two major phage therapy centres: the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology (Tblilisi, Georgia) and the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy (Wroclaw, Poland) (Rohde, Wittmann and Kutter 2018 ).

Why has the development of phage therapy stalled?

Many researchers agree that the development of phage therapy has stalled because of ‘concerns over intellectual property protection’ and ‘lack of a predefined regulatory pathway’ ( Kingwell, 2015 ). The FDA in the USA and the equivalent agency in the European Union have already approved using phage for preserving meat ( Love et al., 2018 ).

Can phage therapy help bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics?

So, although phage therapy can be an effective alternative to antibiotics, it can also make bacterial infections worse by increasing resistance to antibiotics if they are not appropriately selected and harvested. This essay reviews the prospects of using phage therapy to treat bacterial infections, especially those resistant to antibiotics.

Why do governments support phage research?

The moral reason for governments—apart from private firms—to support phage research is that individual companies have not been willing to invest much in research and development, in part because they are uncertain how they might profit from phage therapy.