Antibiotic substitutes: virus

2002/04/23 Orobengoa, Olatz - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Mikrobiologia
• Farmakologia

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are increasingly abundant. This means that disease-causing bacteria are harder and often antibiotic treatment does not cure the disease.

Antibiotics are lethal substances for bacteria. However, prolonged contact with these substances has resulted in mutants who have developed resistance to these antibiotics.

In the search for alternatives to the treatment of antibiotics, Western scientists have resumed the technique used in Russia and Eastern European countries since the 1940s. The technique consists in the use of viruses, bacteriophages, which attack bacteria. Each type of bacteriophage attacks specific bacteria and does not affect other types of bacteria. Therefore, unlike antibiotics, bacteriophages do not affect the bacterial population of living beings, so they would not be so harmful.

If the errors developed by the technique are corrected, scientists believe it can be a very useful tool against pathogenic bacteria.