Scientists forecast: Phagetherapy will soon become the breakthrough in the combat with infections.
Ordinary and effective antibiotics which saved millions of lives last century are becoming less relevant nowadays. Leading bacteriologists are beating the alarm for a long time — in the nearest future medicine will face problems. This situation is aggravated by the following things: omnipresent and not always justified prescription of preparations by doctors, sales of these drugs without receipts and uncontrolled usage of antibiotics in agriculture.
According to the data from the World Health Organization practically all existent pathogenic bacteria (dangerous for people) will get resistant to antibiotics within 10-20 years.
It is necessary to find new methods to combat infections. Physicians consider phagetherapy to occupy the niche where modern hypnotherapy is inconsistent.
Microorganisms generate new strains quicker than all pharmacological companies in the world develop new preparations. The number of resistant microorganisms is increasing but the process of elaboration of new antimicrobial preparations is rather expensive and it is not always justified. Under such conditions the usage of additional and perspective medical products — phage products — is of great importance.
Phages are natural enemies of bacteria - viruses which destroy germs. Each phage type kills only «its own» kind of the germs — due to the special mechanism it gets inside and begins multiplying. Then phages burst the enemy and get outside to find new nourishment. Only splinters are left from bacterium but 100-200 newly born phages appear ready to attack. This process is absolutely harmless and has no side effects for people. Phages find and destroy bacteria against which they are aimed with a pin point accuracy. They do not impact on micro flora and as soon as they eliminate all «targets» they leave the organism by themselves.
Phages become practically irreplaceable in case of nosocomial infections. In hospitals germs, transmitting from patient to patient can get changed and their resistance is being produced within years, sometimes they become invincible for artificial remedies. But natural enemies are always ready to destroy their opponents. In this connection, as physicians say, the main advantage of phages is their possibility to mutate following bacteria: a bacterium produces a new strain and consequently phage changes after that. That is why there is no necessity to invent a new preparation — it is quite possible to re-correct the old one.
Bacteriophages are living organisms, it is their superiority over chemical medical preparations. Phages are indolent and they destroy infection gradually. But they do not provide impact on the natural flora of the organism and do not cause disbacteriosis. In complicated cases they can be used together with antibiotics. When antibiotics are forceless and microbes get resistant to them only phages can be used to rescue. Besides, their advantage is in the following: they are capable to co-habit with any medical preparations and have an immunostimulating action.
Specialists think that it is necessary to supply antibacterial therapy with other forms of treatment due to the resistance of bacteria to the antibiotics action. Physicians and microbiologists consider products with phages to be more effective to combat germs than any other preparations. In Russia products containing phages have been successfully used since 40s last century and are widely applied since 80s both as mono therapy and together with antibiotics for the treatment, prophylaxis, localization and elimination of epidemic focuses of nosocomial enteric infections, pyogenic-septic and other diseases.
Medical preparation based on bacteriophages can become more effective than ordinary antibiotics.
Proteins being «reactant» of virus, in fact are the prototypes of perspective preparations of a new generation to which bacteria will not be able to get resistance.
In fact, bactriophages are more effective than antibiotics. However, for a number of reasons they turned out to be useless as medical preparations, at least in the West they were not used so widely. Nevertheless, to a great extent modern molecular biology is based on the results received while researching phages.
Modern structural methods of investigation are capable to study in details various aspects of interactions of bacteriophages and bacteria-hosts on different stages of infection. Received fundamental knowledge gives the possibility to find a new approach to the problem of the phages use as therapeutic preparations.
Specialists think that the range of existent preparations and elaboration of new ones will increase spectrum of bacterial diseases against which phages are more effective. Many scientists consider antibiotics of the latest generations to be used in severe cases and the application of phages - for the treatment of chronic illnesses and in cases of less complicated situations.
In December 2009 in the Central House of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences at the «round table» discussion leading epidemiologists, microbiologists and clinicians came to the conclusion that phagetherapy can become very effective. It (phagetherapy) has some advantages over antibiotics due to their pin point action towards the concrete bacterium, absence of complications and side effects, the possibility of combination with probiotics and sinbiotics, safe usage by children, pregnant women and nursing mothers and also the preservation of the intestinal micro flora. Besides, bacteriophages can be used as prophylaxis of bacterial infections.
Various mechanisms of resistance of microorganisms to many antimicrobial preparations are called «antibiotic resistance».
The following factors of rapid adaptability of bacteria to antibiotics:
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Unreasonable usage of antibiotics — without doctors' prescriptions and in the cases when they (antibiotics) are useless: virus infections, flu, coughing and diarrhea, high temperature.
