Surely you must've found yourself in a position that is similar to the following scenario: You wake up from bed one morning just to realize that you are afflicted with a runny nose, coughs, a fever, and maybe even a head congestion. What you had was the common cold, and you probably found your condition to be just a minor annoyance and an excuse to miss out on school or on work. In fact (as suggested by the name), the common cold is certainly common, as the CDC reports millions of cases of the cold in the United States each year. After you found out that you had a cold, you probably took a cold medicine and that was the end of the story. Although you took medication to treat your cold, you may be surprised to find that it won't make your cold go away faster. As over-the-counter cold medications only treat the symptoms of the cold, your body ultimately got rid of the cold all on its own. What if I told you that there are medications available to actually combat the cold? That might not sound very interesting, but the implications of antivirals have the potential to cure Rabies, Ebola, or even AIDS.
As suggested, antivirals are drugs that are used to treat viral infections. Whereas antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, it is important to not that antivirals do not work against bacteria and are used specifically to attack viruses. In terms of the history of antivirals, the discovery of antivirals in the 1970s have been quite recent compared to the discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s. Although improvements to antiviral drugs have been slow compared to the advancements made on antibiotics, the implications of these drugs are powerful tools that can be used to save millions of lives.
Currently, antivirals are not available over the counter. A doctor's prescription is needed for obtaining antivirals. As suggested by the CDC, antivirals should only be given in the most severe cases, which can include infants, pregnant women, or those that have compromised immune systems that have been afflicted with a viral infection. Because of this, antivirals are not as popular as antibiotics in terms of awareness and usage.
But how do antivirals work? Like antibiotics, certain types of antivirals work in different ways in order to stop or slow down the production of viruses in the body. Some antivirals work by preventing specific viruses from entering cells, whereas other antivirals inhibit viruses from breaking out of cells, preventing the spread of more viruses throughout the body. Additionally, other drugs also work by inhibiting the replication process of viruses themselves. As many different types of viruses exist out there in the world, a variety of antivirals are also needed to combat them.
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Although research into developing new antivirals is still relatively new, the use of these drugs have already shown promise to treat certain viral diseases. For example, antivirals have been shown to be moderately effective in treating HIV patients. Additionally, a few types of antivirals have also been shown to affect the activity of the Ebola virus. As more research is being done to create discover and create these drugs, the improvement of antivirals (like antibiotics) has the potential to save millions of people.
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