• Question: Why can't a common cold be cured with some sort of antibiotic?

    Asked by 284drud47 to Anne, Florence, Mark, Neil, Sinead on 10 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Sinead Balgobin

      Sinead Balgobin answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      Common colds are caused by viruses, and antibiotics only treat bacterial infections- so they would have no effect on a cold! The only thing that treating a cold with antibiotics would do is make bacteria become more resistant to antibiotics, meaning that they wouldn’t be killed by antibiotics any more. This would be terrible, because simple bacterial infections would get so dangerous we wouldn’t be able to cure them and people would get sick and die.

      Our bodies are usually pretty good at fighting off the common cold, and the effects aren’t so bad (cough, sniffly nose) so it’s best to let our immune systems do the hard work. Coming up with a cure is difficult because there are actually hundreds of cold viruses!

    • Photo: Florence McCarthy

      Florence McCarthy answered on 18 Nov 2015:

      No, I’m afraid not – the common cold is a virus (influenza or flu) and would need specific medicine for viruses to treat it. That is why there is a flu vaccine which is given to people at risk of suffering from other complications (such as a person who is weak or their immune system is low) if they contract flu.

Comments