Drug-resistant “superbugs” could kill 10 million people a year by 2050, according to one scientist trying to stop it.
Serious bacterial infections are usually treated with antibiotics, but when these drugs stop working, patients have little to no recourse left in the way of treatment.
In the US, more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections happen each year.
The Centers for Disease Control has called them an “urgent public crisis.”
Scientists are now working on groundbreaking research that could reverse this crisis using a combination of bacteriophages — natural bacteria-hunting viruses that could save millions of lives if deployed correctly.
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In 2016, her husband was in multi-organ failure from an Iraqibacter infection, named so because the bacteria is common in the sands of Iraq.
She sent a cocktail of phages to his doctors that, once delivered, “scared the bacteria so much that it dropped its outer capsule,” she told CNN.
“Three days later, Tom lifted his head off the pillow out of a deep coma and kissed his daughter’s hand. It was just miraculous.”
Such relief can’t come soon enough — as 5 million people a year continue to die from drug-resistant infections worldwide.
