Anil was twelve when he first inhaled viruses. He sat on his bed in ward 63 of the Hannover Medical School (MHH), in the paediatrics clinic, and imagined the viruses flowing into his bronchi and starting the fight there – against his chronic lung infection. Would it get warm behind your chest? would it hurt "But I didn't feel anything," he recalls today.

He and his mother had traveled more than 500 kilometers from Sindelfingen to Hanover. In the car they had been listening to podcasts and radio programs that his mother had downloaded and that reported on a therapy that had been forgotten for a long time: with bacteriophages.

Access to all STERN PLUS content and articles from the print magazine

ad-free

Already registered?