Some viruses, called bacteriophages or phages, infect and destroy bacteria. Doctors have long hoped to use them against infections that no longer respond to antibiotics, but there has been no shared international standard for doing so.
That has now changed. An effort led by the German Society for Infectious Diseases brought together 20 professional bodies, 18 international experts including regulators, and two patient groups. They agreed on more than 60 recommendations, published in Nature Medicine.
The guidance covers how phages should be chosen, tested, produced, given to patients and monitored, along with laboratory standards and research priorities. Because each phage usually attacks only a specific strain, it has to be matched to the patient's infection first.
The experts are careful not to oversell it. Phage therapy is not recommended as routine care yet, but as an option when established treatments have failed or cannot be used safely.
