This makes it hard to kill viruses without killing our own cells in the process. Bacteria are self-contained life forms that can live independently without a host organism. They are similar to our cells, but also have many features not found in humans. For example, penicillin is effective because it interferes with the construction of the bacterial cell wall. Cell walls are made of a polymer called peptidoglycan. So antibiotics that prevent bacteria from making peptidoglycan can inhibit bacteria without harming the human taking the medicine.
This principle is known as selective toxicity. Unlike bacteria, viruses cannot replicate independently outside a host cell. There is a debate over whether they are really living organisms at all.
To replicate, viruses enter a host cell and hijack its machinery. Once inside, some viruses lie dormant, some replicate slowly and leak from cells over a prolonged period, and others make so many copies that the host cell bursts and dies. The newly replicated virus particles then disperse and infect new host cells. The problem is that if it targets a replication process that is also important to the host cell, it is likely to be toxic to the human host as well.
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