How a virus saved my friend’s life

To see the future of treating bacterial infections, we must look to the past

Bacteriophage attacking bacteria

Several years ago a dear friend of mine suffered a terrible accident that left her hospitalised and fighting for her life. Bedridden for months with a severe bacterial infection and on endless IV lines of antibiotics that weren’t working, it seemed she was living on borrowed time.

There was nothing the doctors could do, but thankfully my friend knew the one person in town who could save her— let’s call them Maria. After taking a swab of the infected wounds and culturing the bacteria, Maria called my friend and said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is it’s multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The good news is I’ve got a phage for that.”

Phage, short for bacteriophage, are viruses that have evolved to only infect and kill specific bacteria. One clandestine trip to administer the phage, and two days later my friend who had been bedridden for months was discharged from hospital.

It sounds like a miracle, but there was nothing miraculous about it — phage, and knowing someone with the skills to use them, simply saved my friend’s life.

Many aren’t so lucky. A health and economic impact study found just five multi-drug resistant hospital-associated bacteria in Australia resulted in over 1000 deaths in 2020. The costs? Almost $440 million in premature death. And hospitals had to stump up almost $72 million, including $24.4 million in additional hospital bed days.

With thousands of Australians dying every year from antibiotic resistant infections and cumulative costs in the billions of dollars, you might be wondering why we aren’t already using phage if they are so great. There are a few different reasons:

1. Politics. The first antibiotics were in short supply and only available to the Allies in World War II. This saw the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent Germany) actively research phage therapy, and in the post-war period a political rejection of Soviet science and all things communist saw the West double down on antibiotics.
2. Profit. The post-war period also saw the growth of a pharmaceutical industry that generated huge profits from antibiotics…