Tobi Nagel: Phages for Global Health, 383 62nd Street, Oakland, CA 94618, USA. Electronic address: tobi@phagesforglobalhealth.org.
Lillian Musila: U.S. Army Medical Research Directorate-Africa, P.O. Box 606-00621, Nairobi, Kenya.
Milkah Muthoni: Kenya Medical Research Institute, P.O. Box 54840-00200, Nairobi, Kenya.
Mikeljon Nikolich: Wound Infections Department, Bacterial Diseases Branch, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA.
Jesca L Nakavuma: School of Biosecurity, Biotechnical and Laboratory Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Martha Rj Clokie: Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, University Road, LE1 7RH, UK.
Lower and middle-income countries seldom develop vaccines and therapeutics for their own populations and are dependent on supplies from industrialized countries, which are often hampered by financial or supply chain limitations. This has resulted in major delays in delivery with significant loss of life, as seen with the coronavirus pandemic. Since the vast majority of deaths from the antimicrobial resistance crisis are expected to occur in developing countries, there is an urgent need for in-country production of antibacterial therapies such as phages. Nationally controlled phage banks might provide such a solution since locally developed phage therapies tailored to endemic bacterial strains could offer cost-effective antibiotic alternatives.
