If antibiotics do not prevent against viral infections, why do Doctors give antibiotics in viral fever?

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anonymous 5 years ago

Antibiotics fight against bacterial infections, they are not antiviral. Taking antibiotics knowingly for viral infections is likely a mistake. Some doctors just prescribe it because without doing couple of tests it is hard to tell whether or not the infection is viral or bacterial.

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anonymous 5 years ago

If antibiotics are used for viral diseases/infection, the treatment may not be successful. This is because antibiotics are having different mode of actions on bacteria which are not suitable for viruses having unique characteristics with respect to their size, shape, plasmid biomolecules and life cycle. Sometimes bacteria infect humans and the viruses infect or live inside these bacteria. In such cases bacteria itself are killed by viruses which live inside them. These viruses are called as bacteriophages. In many treatments of bacterial infection, viruses are used. This is known as Phage therapy. Viruses are common in bacterial population and helps in control of their growth in different habitats like intestine, the ocean, and even in soil.
Therefore antibiotics are not used for treatment of viral diseases but they are anti viral drugs or Antiviral which act on different targets of viruses. These may be by interfering with the ability of viruses to infiltrate a target cell, use of viral entry inhibitor technique which make viruses unable to identify the receptors for their entry into host cells and thus control their infection and finally treat the patients from viral disease with the use of antiviral.

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anonymous 5 years ago