Bacteriophage Therapy: Re-Emerging Treatment to Fight a Growing Threat of Antimicrobial Resistant
Mayank Gangwar*
Banaras Hindu University, India
Citation: Gangwar M (2020) Bacteriophage Therapy: Re-Emerging Treatment to Fight a Growing Threat of Antimicrobial Resistant. SciTech Infectious Diseases 2020. Mauritius
With the continuous use of antibiotics, rapid resistance has emerged among the clinical microbes worldwide, endangering the antibiotics' efficacy that saved millions of lives. As per the latest report of WHO, one of the biggest threats is the antibiotics resistant, which affects global health, food security, and development. However, it may adversely affect anyone, any age group, and in any part of country. With a growing number of infections and uncontrolled use of antibiotics is accelerating the multidrug-resistant process that results in increased mortality. Thus, we are moving into an era where no antibiotic will work due to universal decline in the antibiotics effectiveness. Scientists are worried about these fast-moving superbugs that do not respond to any antibiotics, thus some alternative treatment approaches are needed to be discovered to combat the antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Some of the approaches are bacterial vaccines, bacterial interference, cationic peptides, cyclic d, l-a-peptides, probiotics, and bacteriophage therapy. The use of naturally-occurring bacteriophages that infect bacteria has been defined as a re-emerging strategy to treat antibiotic-resistant infections. Bacteriophages were discovered around a century ago for their therapeutic use, particularly in former Soviet Union countries. After the discovery and use of penicillin, their use was abandoned in Western countries. However, with the continued emergence of multidrug-resistant strains and limited discoveries of new antibiotic, the use of bacteriophages against various infections has led to revitalization of alternate therapy. Now-a-days, phage therapy is rapidly evolving and has emerged as a life-saving therapeutic option for many preclinical and clinical applications. Researchers have confirmed that the bacteriophages hold enormous possibilities, which can prove it as a new weapon for fighting infectious diseases. U.S. is getting its first phage therapy center, at the University of California, San Diego, besides many clinical trials, have been reported with significant outcomes. In conclusion, phage therapy seems to have tremendous therapeutic potential as of date until it is proved otherwise in time to come. This alternative modality must be tested and for better evaluation of this modality the regulations are needed to be modified in 21st century. Hence, in the looming ear of antibiotic crisis, this treatment approach deserves serious consideration, as it can be a revolutionary approach towards taming superbug in the medical field.