Britannica Sources used in this answer

Why do antibiotics not cure viral infections?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Gleevec; imatinib — drug Docking of the anticancer drug Gleevec (imatinib) in the abl domain of the bcr-abl tyrosine kinase. Abnormalities in bcr-abl stimulate the continuous proliferation of bone marrow stem cells, causing an increase in myelogenous cells (granulocytes and macrophages) in the body and leading to chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).

Antibiotics do not cure viral infections because they are specifically designed to target the unique biological structures and processes of bacteria, which are living organisms.21

Antibiotics function by interfering with mechanisms that viruses simply do not possess. For example, many antibiotics inhibit the synthesis of bacterial cell walls or disrupt bacterial ribosomes to prevent protein production. Others target specific metabolic pathways, such as the production of folic acid, or interfere with bacterial RNA synthesis.23

In contrast, viruses are not living organisms; they are submicroscopic entities that must hijack the biochemical machinery of a host cell to replicate. Because viruses lack the cell walls, specific protein-synthesis machinery, and independent metabolic processes that antibiotics target, these drugs have no effect on them. Using antibiotics for viral infections is ineffective and contributes to the global challenge of antibiotic resistance.1