Are phages useful in treating cholera?
Yes. Felix d’Herelle came to India in 1927 and demonstrated the efficacy of anti-cholera phage in reducing the mortality rate in Punjab from 63% in the untreated group to 8% for the phage-treated group. Encouraged by these results, Morison, Director of the King Edward VII Pasteur Institute in Assam, tried phage therapy with impressive success. Whereas 300 to 500 people died during the cholera epidemics in 1925 – 1928, following the use of phage in 1929, the death rates fell to less than ten per year in the period 1930 – 1935, the duration of the study(Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, Volume 28, pp 563 -570, 1935).
