Let me preface this by saying that yes, i know that antibiotics can't be used to treat viruses and i believe vice versa.
To be specific in my question: how good are antivirals against viruses when compared to how good antibiotics are against bacteria. I know that there are A LOT of variables, such as what specific type of virus and bacteria or what antiviral and antibiotic is used, but there has to be some data comparing their relative effectiveness.
Absolutely terrible. Bacteria have a lot in common, like structurally. Viruses are basically bits of DNA that figured out how to propagate themselves.
Comparing the ways to get rid of them is the difference between killing mice with poison, bullets, etc. and getting rid of all the shells on a beach. The poison works on almost all the mice and a bunch of other different types of animals. The shells thing is basically impossible, especially since the sand you want to keep is also composed of a bunch of crushed up shells!
There's some work being done on targeting viral proteins, but every virus is different. That's how the good ones work, they're already keyed into a specific target. A broad spectrum antiviral medicine is much more difficult, to the extent I'll say we probably will never see an effective one.
There are simply too many variables to meaningfully compare the two. Diversity within viruses and bacteria is very large. Antibiotics have historically been more effective, but that may be a fluke of circumstance rather than anything specific to the classes of drugs themselves. Penicillin, for example, works against many bacterial pathogens and is relatively easy to mass-produce. Many bacterial human pathogens have evolutionarily conserved targets for the antibiotics humans discovered in the 20th century. This was basically luck. (I mentioned penicillin, but sulfa drugs are a whole separate story. This video is a good reference https://youtu.be/jEQmqugPiTw?si=NaaF7GLCUhevMvCT). Multi-drug antibiotic resistance proves that these evolutionarily conserved targets are not necessary for bacterial survival or pathogenicity. We were lucky to discover the types of antibiotics we did, and we were lucky that they were effective for so many human pathogens.
This is the correct answer - way too many variables. Historically, antibiotics - antivirals didn't even exist. But we've abused a ton of our antibiotics and there aren't as many and they have mixed results depending the bacteria. Antivirals weren't great when they started - now they can stop aids from killing you or spreading.
Depends on the drug, depends on the disease, will vary by the person.
Source - I'm a senior scientist in biopharma with about 15 years experience.
May I ask something? The one question I'm left with is whether there are certain viruses that we can say confidently respond well to ant-viral therapy. I think this removes the many variables because the answer I'm asking for is whether there are any conditions for which anti-virals are pretty consistently prescribed and considered the main and best form of treatment with a fairly consistent successful outcome.
Anti-retroviral drugs, while not perfect, are extremely effective at treating HIV and preventing AIDS. They have given millions of people extra decades of life. They have almost single-handedly turned the tide in the ongoing HIV pandemic.
Also, the same drug at the same dose for the same bacterial infection can work differently for diffferent parts of the body, mostly based on pharmacokinetics.
Honestly dude antivirals rock, tenofovir ivacaftor etc are all baller;
You, like many in the field of medicine, might be under the impression that antivirals suck mainly because of the fact that there are no broad spectrum antivirals. We can’t treat most viral infections because the organisms themselves are very uncomplicated and so very highly variable. Virtually all antivirals have a very small spectrum, because they don’t share very similar structures, and so targets are limited when compared to bacteria, which for example virtually all have some sort of transpeptidase (generalizing very severely here).
Luckily, most viral infections also aren’t very serious, and are rapidly cleared by our immune system.
Antibiotics are generally more broadly effective and curative against bacteria because they target essential bacterial functions. Antivirals are more specific, targeting particular stages of viral lifecycles, and often control rather than cure viral infections. Resistance can affect both, but antiviral resistance develops more slowly due to their specificity. Antibiotics often result in a complete cure, while antivirals reduce symptoms and viral load.
Anti virals to be frank, suck compared to anti bacterial medications
Anti virals also follow two main categories, ones that actually try to kill the virus and ones that try to just get the virus to be dormant
The problem is that bacteria have more “things” to be targeted and are more squishy and often much larger which compounds so many things
We are a stones throw away from seeing how effective antivirals are.
Although not antivirals, vaccines prevent viral infections. Guess what? Even small pox can get out, and people could still not get vaccinated. Polio is getting worse everyday, and people refuse vaccination for polio.
We (as humankind) perhaps have not find AS effective antivirals as antibiotics; nevertheless, we did develop vaccines.
Without antibiotics, we would have died in our first pneumonia, bronchitis developing into pneumonia, sinus infections going wrong, and a thousand different ways. IF, smallpox, or a mutated version of it (remember that original coronavirus was much milder than a simple cold, whereas Covid-19 killed millions) wiped us out first, while polio left rest of us breathless!