Superbugs and Soviet Medicine

There has not been a new class of antibiotic in over 40 years. Infections that were once easy to treat like gonorrhea and tuberculosis are becoming difficult again. Once 2022 study attributed 1.2 million deaths in 2019 to antibiotic resistance, and 3.8 million deaths were indirectly linked to it.
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. They are the most abundant biological entities on the planet. Phages are a sort of living antibiotic used to cure disease caused by bacteria. The Soviet Union played the biggest role in developing the idea of phage therapy. Phages also evolve along with their bacteria prey.
The first antibiotic was penicillin and it was discovered in 1928. Focus shifted from phages to antibiotics. Data suggests that phages are not harmful to humans, as well as very low rates of adverse effects.
More than 500 foreign patients go the phage therapy center in Georgia and pay $4,300 for two weeks of onsite treatments and medication to take home. Treatment involves first determining which bacteria is responsible for a disease. Then the correct phage is determined. Sometimes researchers have to go looking for the right phage. It usually is located in the same place the bacteria is.
Phages also have other applications. They have been used to treat rot in cabbage for almost 100 years. There is research in other agricultural applications.
Works Cited:
https://eptc.ge/about-eptc/
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/05/03/western-firms-are-becoming-interested-in-a-soviet-medicine
https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/bacteriophage-phage-293/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493185/
Tags:
bacteriophages, bacteriophage, former soviet union, phage therapy in the soviet union, bacteriophage (organism classification), bacteriophage therapy, eliava institute of bacteriophages, the perfect predator, center for innovative phage applications and therapeutics, national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, the national, killing the perfect predactor, phage therapies, bacterial phages, bacteria phage, bacertiophages, phage therapy