Each bacteriophage can infect only certain types of bacteria. That is why bacteriophages have a strictly specific effect that does not affect the natural microflora in the body.
Bacteriophage action
When the virus enters the cell of a pathogenic bacterium, it is introduced into its genome, and its reproduction begins. When a certain amount of new viral particles accumulates inside a bacterial cell , it is destroyed, and the viruses go outside and begin to infect new bacterial cells
Two types of bacteriophages are distinguished:
1. Moderate bacteriophages
These are phages that can multiply slowly inside infected bacterial cells. They can be transmitted among a bacterial colony from one generation to another, from time to time destroying microbial cells. This effect is called lysogenic.
2. Virulent bacteriophages
These are phages that, when they enter the microbe cell, begin rapid reproduction and thereby lead to the rapid destruction of the affected cell. This effect is called lytic.
Using
Today, Pseudomonas bacteriophage is used to treat infections that are caused by protea, staphylococci, streptococci, pseudomonas, Escherichia, Klebsiella. Before antibiotics, bacteriophages were the only drug used to treat infectious diseases. But when antibiotics appeared, a sharp change in the situation occurred, since simple and effective drugs appeared that did not require such a detailed selection as for bacteriophages.
Where apply
The fact is that bacteriophages are resistant. Bacteria may lose sensitivity to antibiotics. Therefore, the pharmaceutical industry has to relentlessly synthesize others. But, as you know, the potentials of the synthesis of antibiotics have limitations. Also, antibiotics are very difficult to adapt to the action of bacteriophages, and according to experts, microbes are completely unable to develop resistance to a complex of several phages. In addition, bacteriophages are drugs that have almost no side effects, they rarely cause allergies, they can be combined with any drugs. Currently, bacteriophages have proven themselves in the treatment of purulent processes in surgery, urological diseases, intestinal infections in newborns.
Negative impact
Bacteriophages are strictly specific preparations, therefore it is rather difficult to select them. If the body does not have the right bacteria, and the bacteria that caused the disease are slightly different, then the duration of the virus in the body is no more than 2-6 days, after which it is destroyed.
Bacteriophage treatment
The use of bacteriophages for treatment requires a fairly long time. For antibiotic treatment, usually 5-7 days are usually enough, and phages are prescribed in three courses of 7-20 days at intervals. It is believed that bacteriophages have the ability to transfer from one bacterium to another part of its genome - this means that antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity are transmitted.