Why don't antibiotics work on viruses?

Answer 1

Viruses are tiny geometric structures that can only reproduce inside a living cell. They range in size from 20 to 250 nanometers (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter). Outside of a living cell, a virus is dormant, but once inside, it takes over the resources of the host cell and begins the production of more virus particles. Viruses are more similar to mechanized bits of information, or robots, than to animal life.

Bacteria are one-celled living organisms. The average bacterium is 1,000 nanometers long. (If a bacterium were my size, a typical virus particle would look like a tiny mouse-robot. If an average virus were my size, a bacterium would be the size of a dinosaur over ten stories tall. Bacteria and viruses are not peers!) All bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall. They can reproduce independently, and inhabit virtually every environment on earth, including soil, water, hot springs, ice packs, and the bodies of plants and animals.

Most bacteria are harmless to humans. In fact, many are quite beneficial. The bacteria in the environment are essential for the breakdown of organic waste and the recycling of elements in the biosphere. Bacteria that normally live in humans can prevent infections and produce substances we need, such as vitamin K. Bacteria in the stomachs of cows and sheep are what enable them to digest grass. Bacteria are also essential to the production of yogurt, cheese, and pickles. Some bacteria cause infections in humans. In fact, they are a devastating cause of human disease.

Answer 2

Because viruses multiply, by grabbing onto a living cell and feeding off of it, if you will. In this way, the antibiotic would have to work longer to attack all of the viruses, which it cannot do. Therefore, the virus lives until it does not any longer.

Answer 3

Antibiotics do work on viruses, hiperacting them and making their behavior act like gonads on flu, it is disgusting since viruses have thin endocarps, and they open up and get sucked by macrofagues. Some viruses get away from the histamines in antibiotics and die a horrible death by red cells and t connectors, which suck the viruses k1 and k2 pods, which help viruses breath and get used as tissue on cell digestion. Sometimes it seems obvious antibiotics do not work on viruses because of their prolongued effect on hypotalam and histamine.
They sure get in the way of cold, flu, hepatitis and ebola. The trick is after two days some catch another disease which is not easy to control: coudrop.

Answer 4

Antibiotics are specifically meant to combat bacteria and cellular organisms, and while they work in a variety of ways, they are all targeted at some portion of bacterial anatomy that is unique -- bacteria have certain proteins in their cell membranes that most other organisms do not possess, or use a unique biochemistry during replication that can be attacked directly.

Viruses are fiendishly difficult to treat directly because they rely on other cells to reproduce -- they are just packets of DNA or RNA, usually surrounded by some sort of protein coat. They invade other cells and use their internal biology to churn out more copies of the virus. At this point in the cycle, however, they are protected by the cell itself, which your body recognizes as "self" and does not attack. There are a few antiviral drugs which target specific viruses and prevent them from either attaching to cells to attack the virus protein coat directly, but they are not designed to be broad spectrum and attack all viruses.

Answer 5

Anti biotic do not work on Viruses because viruses have a inbuilt system that fights against Antibiotics.

Answer 6

In order to understand this, you have to know the differences between bacteria and viruses:

Bacteria are independent, single-celled organisms that can ingest food, process it, excrete wastes, and have all the necessary equipment to replicate themselves.

Viruses are merely a packet of genetic material covered with a protein sheath. In order to grow and reproduce, they have to invade a host cell, insert their genetic material into the DNA of the host cell, and force the host cell to change direction and make lots of new virus particles.

Antibiotics are poisons that attack the processes of living cells -- especially the bacteria that cause disease -- and kill them.

In order for some bio-active chemical to kill viruses, it would have to kill the host cells that have been subverted by the virus to stop the process. That would mean killing the host creature! Not a very pleasant idea!

Answer 7

hmm. Basically viruses aren't bacteria and they need a host cell to survive. Bacteria can live on their own. Viruses insert their DNA into cells and mutate it. Bacteria cell divides. Antibiotics are boosters of the immune system which can kill bacteria in the body. But remember viruses don't live in ur body they live in ur living body cells. So yeah..helpful?

Answer 8

because viruses aren't bacteria? and because antibiotics are meant to just kill the cell of the bacteria, which is actually several thousand times bigger than a virus, so attempting to use the same cure on a virus simply won't work.

Answer 9

Antibiotics are antibacterial agents,they act by inhibition of:
1.cell wall synthesis
2.cell membrane permeability or active transport
3.protein synthesis
4.nucliec acid synthesis

Antiviral drugs act by inhibition of:
1.DNA synthesis
2.RNA synthesis
3.viral entry or uncoating or replication
or by:
4.stimulating natural killer cells of the immune system
5.binding to viral receptors or enzymatic destruction

Most viruses are RNA viruses,that makes it HIGHLY MUTANTS
The most important causes of resistance to antibiotics are chromosomasl mutation and genetic exchange

so antibiotics work to a fixed scheme,but viruses can change either partialy due to mutation(drift) or completely due to genetic interaction which leads to a new progeny(shift)

Answer 10

antibiotics kill cells, such a bacteria (both good and bad ones)

viruses live inside the cells, including the normal cells of human body. You can't kill these cells w/o harming the human.