Abstract

PRADA-PENARANDA, Catalina; HOLGUIN-MORENO, Angela-Victoria; GONZALEZ-BARRIOS, Andrés-Fernando  and  VIVES-FLOREZ, Martha-Josefina. Phage-therapy, an alternative to control bacterial infections. Perspectives in Colombia. Univ. Sci. [online]. 2015, vol.20, n.1, pp.43-59. ISSN 0122-7483.  https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.SC20-1.faci.

Bacteria easily acquire resistance to antimicrobial agents and this reduces the number of effective antibiotics available to treat bacterial infections. Food contamination by bacteria also generates important economic losses and health risks. Products for human consumption must be free of antibiotics used in clinical treatments, and the control of bacteria with antimicrobials is strictly regulated; however, there is a lack of development of new antibiotics. As a result, the development of new antimicrobial strategies is vital. Viruses that infect bacteria called bacteriophages (phages) have been proposed as an alternative treatment in an approach known as phage-therapy. Several studies have evaluated and demonstrated their effectiveness against pathogenic bacteria; currently, there are private companies dedicated to the development of new products based on phage cocktails, to control some bacterial infections. In Colombia, there is no previous information about the use of phages, but phage-therapy represents a great opportunity to use the diversity of the native microbiota. In this review, we present the perspectives for phage-therapy in Colombia as a treatment against bacterial infections.

Keywords : bacteriophages; resistance to antibiotics; phage-therapy; Colombia.

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