Phage Therapy: A Potential Alternative in the Treatment of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterial Infections

Phages are viruses that infect the bacteria and causes bacterial cell lysis [1]. They are “programmed” to terminate one or a few kinds of different strains of bacteria. Phages are widespread in nature and can appear naturally in food and in the human body (for example in the intestines). Phages can efficiently destroy bacteria which have built up resistance over time to antibiotics and which causes life-threatening infections [1,2]. Phage therapy was introduced by Felix d’Herelle, who co discovered phages around 1920 [3]. These findings occurred about 20 years prior to practical application of penicillin, the first antibiotic. At the time of its discovery, phage therapy was being considered as a potential treatment technique against bacterial infectious diseases. Phage therapy was used to treat and prevent infectious bacterial diseases in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and was abandoned by the West in the 1940s with antibiotic era springing up.