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Discovery: Maggots in medicine

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Maggots in medicine

15/05/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - Discovery, Maggots in medicine

The healthcare professionals who are turning to maggot therapy to help clean up wounds

The healthcare professionals who are turning to maggot therapy to help clean up wounds and stop infection.

After centuries of use in wound-healing, the maggot is back. The rise of the drug-resistant superbug means fresh eyes are focused on the superpowers of the larvae of the greenbottle fly species, Lucilia Sericata. James Gallagher reports on the healthcare professionals who are turning to maggot therapy to help clean up wounds and stop infection. 

He talks to Melanie who has Type 1 Diabetes and had a quarter of her foot amputated. When the skin around the wound started to die, threatening the whole limb, she was offered maggot therapy. Now a self-declared maggot superfan, Melanie watched as the larvae, inside a bag a bit like a teabag, digested the dead skin on her foot.

And James visits a factory in Wales, BioMonde, preparing medical grade fly eggs for use across the UK health service.

(Photo: Larvae of the greenbottle fly sitting on so-called horse blood agar seen through a magnifying glass at the pharmaceutical company BioMonde. Credit: David Hecker/DDP/AFP/Getty Images)

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