Why these viruses could save us

One day in the future, a dose of a "ninja virus" might just save your life.

It was the early 1890s, and Ernest Hankin was studying cholera outbreaks along the banks of the Ganges.

As the locals dumped their dead in the holy water, the river should have quickly transformed into a poisonous spring of the disease, with an epidemic sweeping through towns and villages down the valley.

He had seen this across Europe as water supplies became infected with the bacteria, yet here, on the banks of the Ganges, the disease remained relatively tame; the new outbreaks simmered and then died out rather than spreading like wildfire.

Hankin concluded that something mysterious within the water was killing the germs before they could wreak havoc, but it took another 20 years for a French scientist to suggest that their guardian angel was a type of virus known as a bacteriophage.

Harmless to humans but deadly to the cholera bacteria, the virus appeared to be purifying the water before it could infect the local bathers.

Long ignored by scientists, it is now thought that these "ninja viruses" may one day save millions of lives, far beyond the banks of the Ganges, as they offer us a new arsenal of weapons against deadly disease.

A new approach to treating infection cannot come fast enough. For decades, we have relied on antibiotic drugs such as penicillin.

Unless you were particularly young, elderly, or physically weak, you didn't need to fear cuts, bruises, or basic operations.

But as these drugs became more and more widespread, bacteria began to evolve new defences against these drugs - and the consequences have become alarming.

Today, these "antibiotic-resistant" bacteria already claim a few hundred thousand lives a year - but that figure may rise to 10 million by 2050, according to a 2014 report by the UK Government and the biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust.

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