ABSTRACT
The mainstay of management of viral illnesses is vaccination, wherever that is possible. A number of cancers are associated with virus infections, and early vaccination greatly reduces the risk of developing the cancer later in life, example, vaccination against the human papilloma virus is now available to protect prepubescent girls from cervical cancer. There are hundreds of infectious diseases involving every organ in the body, and often the entire body. The treatment of most viral infections is symptomatic and involves managing complications. From about 1935, clinicians have had at their disposal an increasing range of antibacterial drugs capable of killing invading bacteria, usually without great risk to the patient. Patients infected by such resistant organisms will gain no benefit from commonly used antibacterial drugs, and will rely entirely on their own immune mechanisms, as they did before the antibacterial era.
