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Two years after its use with droppers in the treatment of patients in a desperate state, France seems to clearly opt for the phages these sewer viruses capable of killing the most resistant bacteria.
phages present in water, "stick to bacteria and kill them from within" . These are weapons of "mbadive destruction of bacteria," says Professor Frederic Laurent, head of the bacteriology department of the Croix-Rousse Hospital in Lyon (east-central France), where the l? AFP was able to follow an exceptional phage treatment. [19659003] ►How the discovery of 2,000 new species in the intestine will help medicine
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These viruses were discovered in 1917 by the French Canadian Félix d 'Hérelle collaborator of the Institut Pasteur, after badyzes carried out in the Ganges, where cholera disappeared in some places.
Although Western countries abandoned them with the development of antibiotics Eastern European countries use them in traditional medicine, including Georgia.
2019, a milestone
Currently, France, the United States and Belgium are slowly adding to the movement. Phage represent a huge hope for antibiotic-resistant infections that are becoming more common, and considered a future global risk by the World Health Organization . In particular, with the aging of the population and the increasing use of hip and knee prostheses (more than 200,000 per year in France).
"When placing a prosthesis, the risk is 1 to 2% to develop an infection, which reaches 30% in some patients," said Professor Tristan Ferry, specialist in osteoarticular infections in Croix-Rousse , and who leads a team of clinical research on phages .
Since 2016, the French National Agency for Drug Safety (ANSM) has admitted twenty treatments with these phages used as a last resort. But now he wants to go further because the body is convinced that these bacteriophages "are a possible alternative to antibiotics that deserves to be studied" .
"It is now necessary clinical trials to have consolidated data," said Caroline Semaille, responsible for the address of anti-infective drugs of l & # 39; ANSM.
Already this year, the ANSM plans to grant temporary authorizations for use, first step before marketing authorization . A "milestone", according to Caroline Semaille
"This is good news, but I hope that (the authorizations) will not come with a dropper," says Christophe Novou, founder of Fagos sin fronteras.
"I do not understand why, there are people who ask phages and they barely have time: they may die or be amputated are they lost when they try phages? "he asks, this man whose leg, operated 49 times, was saved by this virus.
Fagotherapy
With his badociation, Novou helps patients obtain phages in Georgia, a journey that costs at least . ] 6,000 euros ($ 7,000). But warns that if the phagotherapy does not develop more quickly, a parallel market may be formed on the Internet.
This risk is even greater if one takes into account the fact that a phage reproduces more can kill . "Producing quality bacteriophages is complex and expensive, Georgian phages are not usable here because they are not sufficiently purified," said Ferry.
In France, a new company, Pherecydes Pharma, has been working for ten years phages capable of treating staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and soon E. coli. In the United States, AmpliPhi Biosciences has been launched in this sector. But at the moment, no large laboratory has done so, because phages are not patentable, unlike antibiotics.
Other uses of phages can be very useful: diabetics, who sometimes have to be amputated, or respiratory erections in patients with cystic fibrosis (cystic fibrosis).
And some dream that phages will one day be prescribed for common infections, urinary or digestive. But it will avoid falling into the same mistakes because a bacterium could also become phagoresistant …
Source: AFP
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