What separates antiretrovirals from antivirals?

Question

Like, I know antiretrovirals specifically treat HIV, but what makes them different from other antivirals? Aren’t they both just treating viruses?

In: 1

Answer 1

Typical viruses replicate themselves using the host’s machinery. As such, antivirals usually target that machinery. Retroviruses bring their own machinery to replicate themselves, and as such it is physically unique from the host’s machinery. Some antiretrovirals more specifically target that unique machinery which is called reverse transcriptase