Why do we have a lot of antibiotics, but few antiviral meds? I’m not even considering HIV, because I know it’s has a different structure.
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Bacteria are outside the cells (well most of them do) and they use different machinery to produce energy and metabolize material to make more of themselves. Because they use different mechanisms to reproduce and make energy it is usually safe to target those mechanism to stop them from growing and let your own immune system kill what is reproducing slower. It always a race between the enemy production and the friendly force production.
Viruses (and very few bacteria) infect cells and hide within the walls! It’s hard to detect them and they use our machinery to reproduce, so you have nothin to target to kill them off easily. The best you can do is stop them from getting behind your walls. The ability to hide, and to get behind the walls is why viruses are harder to treat then bacteria. some do however use different mechanism to make their clones within the infected cells. These types of treatments are harsh and can interfere with our own mechanisms to some degree.
the main way the body see’s virus infections is through normal immune surveillance techniques that interrogate normal cells asking them to identify themselves. They do this by presenting their internal parts as ID cards. When they accidently present a viral ID card they are caught and killed. Then counterpart immune cells learn to recognize these invaders externally, but only have they been caught within the walls of your own cells.
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