Question

Antibiotics are succesful in curing bacterial infectionsbut do not cure viral infection.Why?

Answer 1

Antibiotics are chemicals produced by living organisms such as bacteria,fungi ,etc which are capable of destroying or inhibiting the growth of other microorganism such as bacteria by attacking on their cellular machinery. Viruses do not possess any cellular machinery of their own to function. In fact, they use the machinery of the host to survive. Therefore, they have very few biochemical pathways of their own. Hence, it is difficult to find virus-specific targets. That is why antibiotics are not effective to cure viral infections.