The May issue of the Spanish magazine Fun, "The Virus That Saved Our Lives," was written by Luis Miguel Alyssa. The full text is excerpted below:
At the end of 2015, American epidemiologist Stephanie Strathdy and her husband, Thomas Patterson, traveled to Egypt, and upon her return she found that her husband was suffering from a rare disease, weak and weak, vomiting and back pain. On examination, he was infected with Acinetobacter baumannii, which is resistant to almost all antibiotics. After multiple treatments failed, the couple was not desperately discouraged, they decided to look for answers from the scientific literature, and finally found an article published two years ago and almost forgotten. This article explains how to use effective weapons (the phages that infect bacteria and inhabit them) to attack deadly bacteria.
In the current pandemic, it may seem anachronistic to see the virus as a life-saving straw. These microbes are the simplest form of life, so simple that scientists doubt whether they can be considered living things. Viruses consist of a series of DNA, or ribonucleic acids, that are encased in a protein shell. Viruses infect cells and bacteria in order to leave their own genetic material inside the cells and bacteria, which then multiply in large numbers, eventually killing or destroying the cells and bacteria. Viruses are incredibly small and incredibly numerous, with about 380 trillion viruses in the human body, more than 10 times as many as bacteria. David Price, a pathology professor at the University of California, San Diego, said it was impossible to accurately calculate the number of viruses, and scientists could only estimate the number of bacteria in the human body, and they basically agreed that each bacteria contained about 10 viruses.
Our body is a battleground in which viruses infect cells and bacteria, which in turn develop defense mechanisms endlessly. Sometimes, the genetic information that the virus injects into the bacteria ends up merging with the bacteria's genes, so that the offspring of the bacteria have the ability to resist the "invaders" . The struggle between this bacterium and virus in the human body began in the ancient human period when they struggled to survive in the African savannah. This contest continues even after we die, even after we have gone into the soil, and it takes place outside the human body, everywhere, in all flora and fauna. As a result, the bacteria that survived this struggle that lasted millions of years were bacteria that had been infected by viruses. Price notes: "We rarely think about this because it's a microscopic phenomenon that we can't see, but it's always been there and everywhere. ”
From this particular point of view, what are human beings? Price replied, "Humans are a bag of nutrients." We eat three meals a day, which is attractive to bacteria. They just have to wait for us to eat and then provide everything they need. The same is true for viruses. Bacteriophages, for example, are looking for bacteria, and once they find one, they will infect it in droves. "There is no clear winner in this battle at the moment and there will be no future. Eventually, bacteria will appear that are resistant to viruses, but viruses also evolve in order to defeat bacteria. This cycle of repetition may have begun at the beginning of life, because bacteria and viruses were the first microorganisms to appear on Earth. This cycle of infection, attack, and defense began 3.7 billion years ago. In one of those cycles, Patterson, who appeared to be sentenced to death for an incurable infection, found a chance to survive.
"To treat Patterson, the medical staff used 9 bacteriophages and divided them into different combinations." Spanish microbiologist Merritksel García-Quintanilla explains. After 36 hours of treatment, Patterson was still in a coma and needed intubation and oxygen, but his condition did not deteriorate. Over the next two days, doctors injected more viral combinations into the patients. Patterson eventually got out of his coma and was even able to speak. After 4 days, he received antibiotic treatment and continued to receive phage injections for the next 3 weeks, and the overall situation improved. After starting bacteriophage therapy for 245 days, Patterson finally made a full recovery and began a normal life and work.
Garcia-Quintanilla explained that Acinetobacter baumannii is an extremely difficult drug-resistant superbug that usually lives in the soil and can tolerate very harsh environments. As a result of the misuse of antibiotics, Acinetobacter baumann became immune to most antibiotics, and even the most powerful colistin did not help. Acinetobacter baumann prefers hospital settings and can die if infected with this bacterium. Most people's immune systems are able to defeat the bacteria, but immune-weakened patients who are in intensive care are likely to die if they are infected with Acinetobacter baumannii. In her article, Garcia-Quintanilla said she used phages in her experiments to cure mice infected with Acinetobacter baumannii. She believes that Strathdy was inspired by this article to turn to experts in other laboratories that cultivated phages, thus saving her husband's life.
The current list of resistant bacteria is constantly growing, and Acinetobacter baumann is just one of them. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2050, superbugs will kill 10 million people worldwide each year, more than cancer kills.
Source: Reference News Network