Why are antibiotics ineffective against viruses?

Answer 1

Antibiotics are ineffective because antibiotics are only effective against living pathogens, and viruses are not considered living because they can't reproduce themselves and they do not metabolize.

Answer 2

Antibiotics is a broad term used to describe medications that we use to kill or slow down microbial organisms that cause infection. In this term we have several types: Antibacterials, Antifungals, Antiparasitic and Antivirals. As you know we can be infected by any one of these types of microbes.

Most antibiotics work by preventing a bacteria, fungus or parasite from being able to do a certain activity. This includes things like building up it's cell wall, or making proteins necessary for either duplicating itself or performing a vital job.

Compared to bacteria, Viruses are different from all other forms of life in that they generally do not have any "internal machinery" of their own. A bacterial cell is able to carry out it's own functions, all it needs is a nutrition source and it can make copies of itself, get around, make and synthesize proteins and replicate DNA using only what it has. A virus lacks all of these things. A virus that is just sitting outside of a cell does virtually nothing until it encounters a cell to infect. Unless it infects a cell, it cannot make proteins, cannot duplicate itself, can not move around. But once inside a cell it uses the "hosts" internal machinery to do all these things and make more of itself. It essentially "hijacks" the host cell!

Answer 3

They aren't alive to start with.

They are submicroscopic particles called virions, about 1/100th the size of a bacterium and are better described as an infectious agent than an "organism". They are made up of nucleic acid, DNA or RNA, and an encapsulating coat of proteins that is called a capsid. They attach to and penetrate the outer cell wall of a cell belonging to a host (either a plant, animal, human, or bacterium). Once they have a connection with the cell, they release into it their genetic material that contains instructions on how to change the cell's usual function and become a virus maker. The cell stops the function it had for the host (usually) and uses its proteins and other materials to begin to make copies of the virus. Once it has made as many copies as it can, the new virions are expelled from or leak from the damaged cell and move on to attach to more cells in the host to repeat the replication process and perhaps mutation process. To "kill" it is just to disrupt its abilty to unite with a host cell for long enough that it "dries up", becomes inactive, and can no longer attach to and enter the cells.

Answer 4

Anitbiotics cannot kill viruses, because viruses are not alive to begin with. Viruses cannot reproduce on their own, so they are not classified as living organisms, and you can't kill something that isn't alive.

Answer 5

Antibiotics can not treat Viral infections because they kill bacteria, not virus'. There are anti virals, like tamiflu, and valtrex that treat virus' but those are usually only given to people to prevent a virus, not usually treat it. Virus' and bacteria are very different. And even with antibiotics, there are certain antibiotics for certain infections. Not all antibiotics kill all bacteria. Like augmentin kills E.coli (like in a UTI), where as Doxycycline kills Chlamydia, but would have a hard time killing E.coli.

How I know: I'm a CMA

Answer 6

Antibiotics work by targeting specific structures in bacteria that viruses do not have. Since viruses are not alive like bacteria, antibiotics have no effect on them. This is why antibiotics are not effective in treating viral infections.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

you mean viruses? because antibiotics break down the cell wall of bacteria, and viruses don't have a cell wall, therefore it does nothing.