Drug-resistant tuberculosis has invaded one in ten TB patients in Estonia, Latvia, and parts of Russia and China. In Thailand, the top three antimalarial drugs have been rendered useless. The phenomenon isn t just happening in developing nations, says Richard Honour, president and CEO of Phage Therapeutics International, a fledgling company in Bothell, Washington. More American lives are lost each year to antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections than were claimed by the entire Vietnam War, he says. The WHO reports that some 14,000 people die each year just from drug-resistant infections picked up in U.S. hospitals.
Phages are among the simplest organisms on the planet.
About a millionth of an inch in size, a fraction of most bacteria, phages become visible only under an electron microscope. A milliliter of water can contain up to a trillion. Some phages reproduce by invading a bacterium and forcing it to manufacture copies of the phage until the host is overwhelmed, he explains. Eventually, the progeny either dissolve or burst the cell wall, destroying the host bacterium, and move on, ready to prey on surrounding bacteria. A single phage can produce tens of thousands of offspring in an hour, growing exponentially from there.