Why are antibiotics not effective for viral disease?

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Antibiotics generally block the biosynthetic pathways and they block these pathways of the microbes/bacteria. However, viruses have very few biochemical mechanisms of their own and hence are unaffected by antibiotics.

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Antibiotics are effective against bacteria and other non-viral pathogens as they block some of their biosynthetic pathways without affecting human beings. However, viruses do not their own mtabolic machinery. There are very few biochemical processes that can block viral multiplication. Antibiotics are not effective agaist them. They can be overpowered only by development of immunity against them, by the body the host. An antiviral product, called interferon is produced by the cells exposed tothe action of virus.

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