Bacteriophages to the Rescue: A Possible Approach to Antibiotic Resistance

Ella Balasa, a 26-year-old from Richmond, Virginia, recently made the news when she was apparently successfully treated for a lung infection using a kind of virus called a bacteriophage. The word “apparently” is important in terms of determining exactly how effective the treatment was, in a clinical sense. A bacteriophage is a virus that infects bacteria. They aren’t typically used to treat bacterial infections, but in desperate cases, they have been used to treat particularly antibiotic-resistant infections. Such as the one that Balasa was battling. “I’m really running out of options,” Balasa told AP. “I know it might not have an effect. But I am very hopeful.”
Balasa has cystic fibrosis, which is a disease that affects the lungs, scarring lung tissue, which can trap bacteria. She had picked up an antibiotic-resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. At first, inhaled antibiotics controlled the infection, but then they stopped working. She was placed on intravenous antibiotics, but Balasa didn’t respond to those either.