Phage therapeutics: from promises to practices and prospectives.

The rise in multi-drug resistant bacteria and the inability to develop novel antibacterial agents limits our arsenal against infectious diseases. Antibiotic resistance is a global issue requiring an immediate solution, including the development of new antibiotic molecules and other alternative modes of therapy. This article highlights the mechanism of bacteriophage treatment that makes it a real solution for multidrug-resistant infectious diseases. Several case reports identified phage therapy as a potential solution to the emerging challenge of multi-drug resistance. Bacteriophages, unlike antibiotics, have special features, such as host specificity and do not impact other commensals. A new outlook has also arisen with recent advancements in the understanding of phage immunobiology, where phages are repurposed against both bacterial and viral infections. Thus, the potential possibility of phages in COVID-19 patients with secondary bacterial infections has been briefly elucidated. However, significant obstacles that need to be addressed are to design better clinical studies that may contribute to the widespread use of bacteriophage therapy against multi-drug resistant pathogens. In conclusion, antibacterial agents can be used with bacteriophages, i.e. bacteriophage-antibiotic combination therapy, or they can be administered alone in cases when antibiotics are ineffective.Key points• AMR, a consequence of antibiotic generated menace globally, has led to the resurgence of phage therapy as an effective and sustainable solution without any side effects and high specificity against refractory MDR bacterial infections.• Bacteriophages have fewer adverse reactions and can thus be used as monotherapy as well as in conjunction with antibiotics.• In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, phage therapy may be a viable option.

State of assisted reproduction technology in the coronavirus disease 2019 era and consequences on human reproductive system.

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has created havoc on the socio-economic aspect of the world. With billions of lives being affected by this wrecking pandemic, global fertility services were also not left untouched by its impact. The possibility of sexual transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, its impact on male and female fertility, pregnancy, its potential teratogenic effect, and handling of gametes in the clinical laboratories were major concerns among reproductive medicine specialists, which led down all the reproductive health services, including IUI, IVF/ICSI in most of the countries. Even the people did not intend to conceive during the pandemic crisis and were hesitant to avail such services. Discrete evidence regarding the pathophysiology of COVID-19 infection and its impact on the human reproductive system is not very clear. In this review article, we intend to incorporate all the evidence related to the COVID-19 infection and its impact on human reproduction available to date. It is our responsibility to provide rightful information and to keep our patients familiar with the existing lack of clear evidence. In this COVID-19 era, it is important that the fertility management be prioritized in sub-fertile couples with diminished fertility reserve and high-risk conditions, like malignancies, that may affect their long-term fertility prospects.