Historical perspective

Viruses are resistant to the action of antibiotics that target bacteria and other microbes. As obligate intracellular parasites with very restricted genetic coding capacity, viruses rely heavily on utilizing the metabolic machinery of the cell for their replication. However,  replication involves (and is reliant on)  one  or more specific proteins encoded by viruses and  this  has  led to the  development of a number of successful antiviral agents that can,  at some level,  selectively inhibit viral protein functions and  therefore curtail virus infection. Chemotherapeutic agents fall into three broad groups. Virucides include detergents and solvents that directly inactivate viruses. Antivirals (the main focus of this section) inhibit virus replication and aim to achieve this with little or no effect on host cell metabolism. Finally, immunomodulating agents (e.g. therapeutic interleukins and interferons) attempt to enhance the immune response against viruses to promote virus clearance.