Belgium is working on a virus to combat superbugs

Belgium is currently working on producing a virus that could be used to combat superbugs, which are the result of resistance to antimicrobials, in a process known as viral phage therapy.

Resistance to antimicrobials is a serious problem that is causing increasing concern to scientists around the world, who are already working on new treatments in response to the reduced effectiveness of antibiotics.

A group of Belgian researchers is working on an unusual treatment that will consist of using bacteriophages (a type of virus that infects bacteria) to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to Jean-Paul Pirnay, one of the authors of the study published in New Scientist, “there is a clinical improvement in around 70% of cases”.

Pirnay described one of the cases, in which a 30-year-old woman was seriously injured in a suicide attack at the Brussels airport in 2016. Even though she received antibiotics upon arriving at the hospital, her wounds became infected.

She had become infected by a type of bacteria called Klebsiella pneumoniae, which is resistant to almost all medications. A doctor sent a sample of the bacteria to the George Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, in an attempt to find a bacteriophage that could kill it.

After finding a suitable bacteriophage, the institute developed the virus to kill the bacteria, but the hospital suspended the therapy due to concerns about the patient’s safety. Finally, in response to a lack of results from other treatments, the bacteriophages were used again in 2018 and the woman recovered.

“At that time there was very little scientific literature regarding the use of bacteriophages, except in countries where these therapies have been used for a long time, such as Georgia and Poland”, said Anais Eskenazi, the doctor leading the case.

However, these treatments are still facing many bureaucratic hurdles. In Belgium, the agency that regulates the introduction of medications approved the use of viral phage therapy, but this is not the case in the rest of Europe.

________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.