What Is A Viral Infection And What Causes It?

A viral infection is caused by a virus. This is a smaller infection than a bacterial infection and is covered in a thick coating which makes it hard to penetrate and kill. Viruses are far smaller than bacteria, but are harder to kill. However unlike bacteria, they need a host cell to survive on.
Viral infections range in severity, from colds to the AIDS Virus. Antibiotics don’t work on viral infections and in many cases the use of antibiotics only strengthens the virus and causes it to evolve and be immune to medicine. There are very few anti viral medicines in existence.
Viruses are tiny in size and was mentioned need host cells to survive. This means that the virus must cling onto and feed off a healthy cell to live. When it clings onto the cell it may do many things. A common cold kills cells, cancer; another form of virus transforms and mutates the cell into a cancerous cell. Some viruses just lie around such as herpes and can come back and become apparent at any stage.
Bodies fight viruses through antibodies. These antibodies fight the viral infection and defeat it, in doing so they become immune to the virus. The ever evolving virus and ever immune antibodies keep morphing and so no one is victorious and so it is so hard to defeat viruses.
Viral injections work on a premise that if your body is injected with and defeats a small part of a viral infection, it becomes immune to it, meaning that when and if it is attacked by a larger viral infection it will already be immune.
Generally viral infections take place due to inhalation, swallowing, sexual activity or bites.
The most commonly known form of viral infection is colds, bronchitis, flu and tonsillitis. More serious forms include Aids, hepatitis and HIV.

Any change in season, and we can see many people suffering from fever, running nose, body ache, shivering and a general feeling of tiredness and lethargy. This kind of fever which develops and gets treated without the virus being specifically identified is called 'viral fever'.

The course and duration differ in each person as they react differently to it. Normally it lasts from about three days to seven days. The severity of the fever is maximum in the first three days and as the medicines take effect, the fever tapers off. There is a saying that 'viral fever usually gets treated in seven days with medicines and in a week's time without any.' Not with standing that, doctor should be consulted to avoid any complications.

Antibiotics if prescribed should be taken for speedy recovery. Patient should be given light and simple food with a lot of liquid in the form of fresh juices and soups. Patient should be allowed to rest in a comfortable and airy room and away from other family members to avoid spreading the fever.

A viral infection is caused by a virus, for example a flu virus, the sars virus, avian flu and others
The virus is spread by droplets of the virus present in the saliva of the host person, when they sneeze or blow their nose, they are released into the air and the virus can easily be spread to other people, near them.
Virologists who study these viruses, which are constantly changing adapting and mutating to survive, try to produce a vaccine to protect us against them. Since viruses do not react to antibiotics in the same way that bacterial infections do,
scientists have to try to predict what the next step will be when confronted by ever new viruses.