Using Virus To Kill Bacteria Is Like Playing With Fire

Viruses could kill superbugs that antibiotics can’t by Catherine de Lange was published in New Scientist. This is my response to this article:

Hindus in India have this ritual of making their dead relatives drink Ganges water. Ganges is colonised with bacteriophages. This ritual helps prevent abdominal distention caused by multiplying bacteria in the stomach of a dead person. Hindus call this water “Amrith” the nectar of immortality.

In this 1999 BBC2 TV programme it clearly shows that there is a way to beat these hospital super bugs (http://www.medifix.org/safec/pages/bacteriophage.html).

We must not forget how life evolved and eukaryotes were formed to get over enthusiastic about bacteriophage therapy.

Bacteria are “prokaryotes”; their cells are smaller than those of all higher organisms “eukaryotes” and have a simpler structure, lacking a well-defined nucleus. However, around a billion years ago, a group of free-living photosynthetic cyanobacteria took up residence inside other primitive single-celled organisms to form the energy generating chloroplast of the first plant cells. In addition, in a similarly extraordinary maneuver oxygen-utilizing mi­crobes called alpha proteobacteria (looks like a virus) became incorporated into other microbes as mitochondria, the powerhouse of animal cells.

If the bacteriophage (virus) for some unknown reason takes refuge in the bacteria, we do not know what the effect could be. I feel very uncomfortable when I read publication about using virus to kill bacteria. Playing with bacteriophage is like “playing with fire”

Bacteriophage helps kill bacteria locally but it may not be a good idea to treat systemic infection. Using Bacteriophage to kill virulent super smart bacteria can be dangerous because this virus may carry plasmid from one bacteria to another result in different strains of bacteria developing immunity to antibiotics. We know this has already hapened because we now have ten bacterias that are resistant to treatment. The virus may also decide to live inside a bacteria or incorporate their RNA similar to HIV virus in a cell.

The best option I think we must encourage is “meticulously and religiously prevent introducing bacteria into human” by strict aseptic technique and avoiding all practical procedures. If we continue allowing the bacteria to thrive in our body, we will be giving them more opportunity to learn to fight, educate other bacteria, multiply and infect more healthy adults and children.