One of the main public health problems worldwide is resistance to antibiotics. The misuse of these has favored the emergence of multi-resistant bacteria, being a global health problem due to the lack of treatment. That is why, from the World Health Organization, it is warned of the need to develop alternative therapies that help combat these bacteria of the so-called “silent pandemic.”
Taking advantage of the fact that the framework document for the National Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance has just been published in Spain, and that the World Phage Week is being celebrated, from the Spanish Network of Bacteriophages and Transducer Elements (Fagome), we want to highlight the importance of phages, viruses that infect bacteria, as very useful biomedical tools in the fight against resistant pathogenic bacteria.
Phages are viruses capable of recognizing and destroying target bacteria. Being so specific, they leave the beneficial microbiota for our body unaltered, killing only those bacteria that cause the infection. These viruses or their derivatives, lytic enzymes, can therefore be used as a targeted and sustainable therapy against multi-resistant bacteria that have no treatment. In Spain, the use of phages is restricted to compassionate use, when the patient lacks regulated treatment. At Fagoma, we want to emphasize that these therapeutic viruses and their lytic enzymes can be the solution for patients with recurrent infections by resistant bacteria, who require a personalized solution. To facilitate its use in the clinic, we consider that the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products should regulate the use of phages and their derivatives as therapeutic agents, which would help facilitate access to phage therapy to patients themselves and giving patients Hospital centers new treatment alternatives.
In Spain there have already been cases of patients treated with phages with very promising results in persistent and chronic infections caused by pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacterium abscessus, respectively, and clinical trials are being carried out with the participation of several hospitals against clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus.
Fagoma is a network led by Pilar García that includes Spanish experts in phage therapy, including biologists, biotechnologists, pharmacists, doctors, infectologists and clinical microbiologists. Research groups and private sector companies, both leaders in the field, are leading projects based on the implementation of phage therapy as a therapeutic tool, showing that the use of this technology in the clinic could be a solution to a global problem that it urgently requires an effective measure in the short term.
Pilar Garcia, researcher at the Institute of Dairy Products of Asturias (IPLA-CSIC), and Pilar Domingo-Calap, Researcher at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology, representing the Spanish Network of Bacteriophages and Transducer Elements.
You can follow MATTER in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Therapeutic #viruses #superbugs