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A viral infection is caused by a virus getting into your body and using your healthy cells to make copies of itself. Sometimes a viral infection can make you sick, and sometimes the symptoms can be severe. Often, your immune system successfully fights off the virus without you noticing any symptoms.
Viruses can’t replicate on their own. They need to hijack the machinery of healthy cells to make copies of themselves. Wrapped inside a protein shell called an antigen, viruses carry a small amount of genetic information — either RNA or DNA. The antigen allows them to break into healthy cells, then the genetic information allows them to reproduce.
As the virus multiplies and takes over more and more cells, the healthy cells can die, get damaged or change. The virus will try to hide from the immune system by passing itself off as a healthy cell. As the virus multiplies and takes over more and more healthy cells, your immune system fights back harder, and you feel sick.
The fever, exhaustion, headache, rash and other symptoms you feel when you’re sick are a result of your immune system trying to eliminate the infection.
Once your immune system has learned how to fight off a virus, it’s prepared if you get infected again. This is why you are less likely to get as sick, if sick at all, when your body encounters a very similar virus a second time. It’s also how vaccines work.
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Vaccines like the annual flu shot imitate a virus by introducing the antigen part of a weakened or dead virus. The antigen triggers the immune system to go to work fighting it. As the immune system kicks into action against a perceived threat, you might feel tired and achy for a few days.
Newer vaccines, like the ones used to help protect against COVID-19, use messenger RNA (mRNA) to trigger the immune response. The mRNA is a disguise to trick the immune system to respond, but doesn’t carry any of the virus that makes people sick.
An antiviral medication can target a specific virus and inhibit its ability to take over healthy cells to replicate. An antiviral medication can target viral functions such as the virus’ ability to hijack a host cell or create new viral particles, reducing the severity and duration of a viral infection.
Based on symptoms alone, it’s often hard to tell if an infection is bacterial or viral. Both can cause similar symptoms, including a fever, upset stomach or sore throat. A bacterial infection is caused by a single-celled bacteria that can be treated with an antibiotic.
Like viruses, harmful bacteria kill cells or disrupt them. Unlike a virus, bacteria is an organism that can replicate on its own and do it very rapidly. They can grow so fast that they crowd out healthy tissues and disrupt your body’s function.
The immune system responds to bacterial infection to fight off the intruder. Sometimes an antibiotic is needed to help it get control of the microorganism.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers the following guide to whether antibiotics will make you feel better if you have a respiratory infection:
Some viral infections can be treated with medication, including flu, herpes, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV, RSV and others.
An antiviral medication interferes with the virus’s ability to replicate in host cells. An antibiotic would be ineffective against viral infections.
Vaccines can help lessen the severity of many viral diseases if not prevent them entirely. Staying on top of your vaccines, including the annual flu shot, is an easy step to help prevent illness. Review your vaccination schedule at your annual checkup with your primary care provider or your child’s pediatrician.
Additional steps to prevent an infectious disease include: