PHAGES AS ANTIBACTERIAL AGENTS: LABORATORY TRAINING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

By 2050 an estimated 10 million people will die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections — almost 90% of those in the developing world (1). Thus, alternatives to conventional antibiotics are particularly important for the developing world, with the added criteria that they must also be inexpensive, given resource limitations in low- and middle-income countries. Bacteriophage (phages) are promising antimicrobials that are not only effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria and inexpensive to develop, they are also relatively easy to isolate from contaminated environments. We describe here an educational programme through which we are bringing phage expertise to public health scientists in developing countries.