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Why regular antibiotics not be used as effective treatment of viral diseases?
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
Antibiotics are totally worthless and ineffective for the treatment of flu or other viral diseases.
Viruses pose a considerable challenge to the body's immune system because they hide inside cells. This makes it difficult for antibodies to reach them. However, special immune system cells, called T-lymphocytes, can recognise and kill cells containing viruses, since the surface of infected cells is changed when the virus begins to multiply. Many viruses, when released from infected cells, will be effectively knocked out by antibodies, produced in response to infection or previous immunisation.
Antibiotics kill bacteria by interfering with their metabolic processes, but viruses are so simple they use their host cells to perform their activities for them. This is why antibiotics are useless against viral infections. Antiviral drugs work by interfering with the viral enzymes. Antiviral drugs are currently only effective against a few viral diseases, such as influenza, herpes, hepatitis B and C and HIV, but research is ongoing. A naturally occurring protein, called interferon (which the body produces to help fight viral infections), can now be produced in the laboratory and is used to treat hepatitis C infections.
Viral diseases should never be treated with antibiotics. Sometimes a person with a viral disease will develop a bacterial disease as a complication of the initial viral disease. For example, children with chickenpox often scratch the skin sores caused by the viral infection. Bacteria such as staph can enter those lesions and cause a bacterial infection. The doctor may then prescribe an antibiotic to destroy the bacteria. The antibiotic, however, will not work on the chickenpox virus. It will work only against staph.
Antibiotics do not affect viruses, but many flu deaths are due to secondary bacterial infections such as pneumonia. Antibiotics would be used to treat these cases.
I think that this is completely correct!!!!!!!!!
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
Wiki User
∙ 11y agoAntibiotics inhibit enzymes specific to bacteria and have no effect on virally encoded enzymes.
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Why regular antibodies not be used as effective treatment of viral diseases but effective against bacterial infection?
Viral diseases are caused by viruses which live in our cells as a host. So, killing them by antibiotics means killing our own cells. This is why antibiotics are not effective against viral diseases.
Common diseases caused by Klebsiella pneumonia?
The symptoms are the same as regular pneumonia, but the treatment is with different antibiotics. Also, if you don't have relief from the symptoms in 5-7 days, check in with your doctor. You may need IV antibiotics.
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This depends on the context of your question. Antibiotics kill bacteria (but have no effect on viruses or fungi). People who are treated with steroids (usually as a strong anti-inflammatory drug) are prone to get bacteria, viral or fungal infections more often than normal healthy people (adult or children). Antibiotics and steroids are often used in combination for some types of infections or in some patients with underlying systemic diseases, such as chronic airway obstructive diseases like asthma or in patients with diabetes and other chronic diseases, who have an infection that is not responding as desired to improve the symptoms with only one or the other of these drugs. If you are on regular treatment with steroids, then the doctor may have given you antibiotics hoping to prevent secondary opportunistic infections or maybe he/she has prescribed the antibiotics for some specific infection. I would suggest you to contact the prescribing doctor and ask your specific question, since the answer can vary depending on the full circumstances of your condition. There is no risk of using these two drugs together in short-term use, but it is not recommended to use these drugs on a regular basis for the long-term if there are any alternatives.
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