For some years now, there has been global concern about the creation of superbugs that are resistant to almost everything, particularly antibiotics. My question is whether something similar could happen with viruses. Do viruses adapt in a way that makes them similar to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or does their rapid adaptation and transmission make them fundamentally different? I tried researching this topic through papers and interviews, but I couldn’t find a clear explanation.
In: Biology
Short answer: yes.
Living things mutate. Most of those mutations don’t do anything, and some of them are harmful, but occasionally some of them are helpful. When a virus reproduces inside a host cell, there is always a possibility of small errors occurring during that process which can lead to mutations. This means not all the daughter viruses are going to be identical, and some of them may be resistant to whatever drugs or treatments are being used to try and prevent the viral infection.
However, there is a major advantage that antiviral medications have over antibiotics: viruses can’t reproduce on their own, they need a host cell. Viruses don’t have the machinery to make more of themselves, instead they co-opt the machinery of your body. The machinery of your body doesn’t change very quickly though, which means that a pretty effective way to treat a severe viral infection is to target the machinery in your body that produces copies of the virus. Unfortunately, that machinery is something your body needs to survive, which means that this approach can have pretty substantial negative side effects. For instance, a common multi-spectrum anti-viral drug is called Remdesivir, which targets viral RNA polymerase to prevent the viral DNA analogue from being copied. Your body also has RNA polymerase though, which means you can experience some side-effects like liver inflammation.
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