Question

Why are antiviral medicines not available easily to us?

Answer 1

Antiviral drugs usually have more side effect and most of the viral infection are self-limited, so there is low cost-efficiency benefit.


Designing safe and effective antiviral drugs is difficult, because viruses use the host's cells to replicate. This makes it difficult to find targets for the drug that would interfere with the virus without also harming the host organism's cells.

Antiviral drugs have not been easy to develop, despite 50 years of research, only about 100 antiviral drugs are available on the market, the laborious slow progress makes the drugs expensive,