Phage Therapy News

Health Europa, January, 2022
The challenges and opportunities associated with phage therapy
Phage Therapy Center was founded in 2003 by a leading group of Georgian microbiologists and polymer scientists. Their goal was to establish a clinic that catered to foreign patients primarily to treat non-healing / chronic wounds. The clinic was acquired by Phage International, who funded a treatment facility in Tbilisi and expanded the scope of treatment to the most common chronic and drug-resistant infections.

Infectious Disease News, November 12, 2018
Review Indicates phage therapy safe - evidence against ESKAPE pathogens
A systematic review of published studies showed that phage therapy is a safe and effective treatment for infections caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens, researchers said.

Contageion Live - Infectious Diseases Today, October 8, 2018
Treatment of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections: Back to the Future of Therapies
The closing plenary at the 2018 annual ID Week 2018, held in San Francisco, California, took a decidedly personal turn in addressing the re-emergence of phage therapy to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

The Dallas News, June 21, 2018
Rowlett Woman Cured By Drinking Live Virus
It took five years, but a North Texas woman has finally been cured of an infection that antibiotics couldn't kill. She traveled halfway around the world to find the cure in the form of a virus.

The Dallas Morning News, June 20, 2018
She drank live viruses for two weeks. It worked
For five years, Patti Swearingen battled an infection that refused to go away. Doctors prescribed round after round of antibiotics, but the infection kept coming back. Eventually, the microscopic war inside her body left Swearingen so weak and debilitated she could barely leave her living room couch.

The Dallas Morning News, March 26, 2018
Debilitating infection led Dallas-area woman to try to outsmart bacteria
For more than five years, Swearingen, 60, of Rowlett, had been on and off antibiotics, battling an infection that kept coming back. At first, it was the bacteria that made her ill. Now it was the drugs themselves she couldn?t tolerate. They made her vomit, gave her migraines, sapped her energy and caused vertigo. Worst of all, her symptoms kept her from doing the things she cherished: making breakfast for her husband, checking on her 86-year-old mother, making plans to visit her grandchildren.

Business Insider, October 15, 2017
Viruses discovered a century ago may be our best defense against a threat that could kill 10 million people a year by 2050
Antibiotic resistance -- the phenomenon in which bacteria stop responding to certain antibiotics -- is a growing threat around the world. It's expected to kill 10 million people annually by 2050.

EURASIANET.org, June 19, 2017
Can Georgia Save the World from Antibiotics Overuse?
Dr. Zemfira Alavidze?s desk was covered with a variety of antibiotics ? in vials, pills and ointments ? as she described the medical history of a patient, an American who had been told by other doctors that she might only have months to live.

The patient, 51 at the time, had suffered from a chronic sinus infection for over a decade: the antibiotics that had been prescribed over those years had critically damaged her immune system, and eventually she ran out of antibiotics that could contain her infection.

Heartlander, July 14, 2016
Bacteriophage Therapy Grows as Alternative to Antibiotic
After five years of enduring chronic infections and a trip to the Republic of Georgia, Shalini Zachariah Mendelsohn from Chicago is cured, no thanks to antibiotics or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Following sinus surgery in December 2015, Mendelsohn, 43, was diagnosed with staph A MRSA, a bacterial infection resistant to most antibiotics. Although a senior account executive in the pharmaceutical industry, at the time she was diagnosed she was unfamiliar with the treatment that would cure her: bacteriophage therapy.

Prevention Magazine, January 1, 2015
A Cure Exists For Antibiotic-Resistant Infections. So Why Are Thousands Of Americans Still Dying?
Deadly antibiotic-resistant infections have American doctors trembling. Thanks to a therapy long forgotten here, one country in Eastern Europe is having no such crisis. So why isn't the US on board?

More than 2 million Americans each year get sick from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which find their victims both in the hospital and in the everyday world. At least 23,000 die annually from those infections. A report released last spring by the World Health Organization suggests that those numbers are about to get much higher. The WHO warns of an approaching "postantibiotic era," a time when common infections (strep throat) and minor injuries (a scraped knee) can kill.

Dr. Oz Television Show, December 11, 2015
Laura Roberts
Laura, a viewer, talks to Dr. Oz about how antibiotic resistance harmed her health, and Dr. Oz describes how this resistance can happen. Note: Laura Roberts is the subject of the above article that was published in Prevention Magazine at the beginning of 2015. Laura is interviewed in the last three segments this Dr. Oz program. Unfortunately, while she was allowed to very briefly mention that phage therapy cleared her MRSA infection, more information was not pursued by the producers of the program.

Komo News, March 30, 2013
You Become Desperate: Obscure Therapy Saves Woman's Life
A local family got the worst possible news - an infection was taking over a young woman's body and she was close to death. The worst of it came about two years ago when two infections - MRSA and pseudomonas - settled in Rachel's lungs and wouldn't let go. They tried virtually every antibiotic available - but Rachel's infections were drug resistant. Doctors prepared the family for Rachel's death. From the first phage treatment that we did, the MRSA disappeared. And we'd been battling MRSA for almost three years, at the point we started this. And it was gone, says Rose George. The MRSA cleared up. Then the psuedomonas infection went away.

July 19, 2013 - Medica
Hospital: Bacteriophages Battle Superbugs

July 9, 2013 - Serge Fortuna
Les Phages du Futur

June, 2013 - Future Medicine
Phage cocktails and the future of phage therapy

May 21, 2013 - The Economist
A virus shield

May 21, 2013 - Bioscience Technology
New Immune System Discovered

May 21, 2013 - National Geographic
Meet You New Symbionts - Trillions of Viruses

May 25, 2007 - The New York Times
Studying Anthrax in a Soviet-era Lab - with Western Funding

March 16, 2007 - Georgia Today
Medical Tourism: You Either Go to Tbilisi or Die

January 8, 2007 - San Jose Business Journal
Making business from treatment Western medicine passed by

July 7, 2006 - USA Today
U.S. needs to open eyes to 'phage therapy'

July 1, 2006 - MetroFarm / The Food Chain with Michael Olson
Show #501: Magic Bullets & Super Bugs

May 31, 2005 - Epoch Times
Alternatives: Phage Therapy: Rediscovering a Treatment for Superbug Infections