Antibiotic drugs treat a large degree of bacterial infections, but viral infections seem to be trickier to develop medicinal treatment for. Why?
In: Biology
Viruses and bacteria have very different mechanisms to survive and perform replication. Viruses replicate by inserting themselves into the host cell and use their replication mechanisms. They join with the host cells DNA, make themselves fancy new protein/phosopholipid sheaths, and then lyse the cell to go back into the environment.
A virus can be wiped out by the immune system, and then cells lyse and release more virus. Antivirals have to deal with this while antibiotics do not.
Viruses as a whole also mutate much faster than bacteria on average.
Sorry, currently not home and I’m on my phone so this might be a little choppy.
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