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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Regarding the lack of antivirals, I asked my uncle who happens to be a virologist.
He attributes the difficulty to produce antiviral treatment (be it medicine or vaccines) to two main factors:
1. Viruses mutate quite quickly, so even if you get to synthesise some kind of treatment/prevention the chances of it not working anymore due to mutations are high, just like the streams of corona virus.
2. In his words “bacteria kinda are alike”, in a way that a single antibiotic may work on a miriad of different bacteria. On the other hand, viruses require specific antivirus for each of them.
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