Question

Why can't antibiotics kill viruses?

Answer 1

Viruses:

1. Viruses are acellular organisms.
2. They possess an inert crystalline structure when they are outside the living cell.
3. Viruses do not have any cell wall and their genetic material is present in the protein coat.
4. Viruses use the host machinery to make multiple copies of themselves because they are not self-replicating.
5. They reprogram the healthy cells while infecting them to make multiple copies of their genome.

Antibiotics:

1. Antibiotics are medicines that slow down the growth of bacteria and destroy them.
2. Antibiotics work by destroying the cell wall of bacteria or targeting the machinery of the growth of bacteria.
3. Antibiotics are used against bacterial infection and cannot kill viruses.
4. The mode of replication and structure of viruses are different from that of bacteria.
5. This is the reason due to which antibiotics do not function against viruses.