So I understand that antibiotics are used for bacterial infections ranging from respiratory infections to STI’s. But how do antibiotics help against parasites which are generally larger than bacteria?
In: Biology
Different class of drugs are used for parasites bacterial and virus infections. One of the biggest questions raised by how a anti malaria drug would work on the current virus. Not saying it can’t have a weakness that the drug could hurt it but not likely.
Antibiotic generally refers to drugs that target and kill certain microbes. This can be things like bacteria (most commonly), or parasites or even fungi. Every antibiotic targets a specific thing. Some antibiotics target production of bacteria cell wall for example. Some target bacterial cellular machinery.
It’s not a question of size. It’s a question of finding a drug that will be specific to its target.
If you develop a drug to kill bacteria but it also targets the same human cellar structures it can cause us a lot of harm. That’s why we find ones specialized to structure unique of bacteria
Bringing this back to parasites it’s not about the size. Its about developing drugs that will kill parasites by targeting structure that are in them and aren’t in humans
TLDR; antibiotics target specific structures to kill organisms, their antibiotic properties are not caused by an organism’s size
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