Accurate Diagnosis of Bacterial and Viral Infections
Is an infection bacterial or viral? This may seem like a trivial matter if you are not a doctor. When you get sick, all you want is to recover as quickly as possible. In fact, if you are like most people, bacteria and viruses probably sound the same. Chances are that you don’t know that much about either of them and can’t tell the difference between a viral and bacterial infection.
While this distinction may seem trivial to the layman, it is essential in the provision of effective and sustainable medical attention.
If there’s a mistake in determining whether an infection has been caused by bacteria or a virus, there are a number of undesirable consequences. One of them is that antibiotics can be underprescribed, which can result in the ineffectiveness of treatment. An overprescription also won’t help, especially because antibiotics don’t do much to viruses.
But there’s a more pernicious consequence. Bacteria are good at adapting. The wrong use of antibiotics helps them develop resistance to medication. This can be catastrophic. It could mean that even when a diagnosis is made correctly, medication doesn’t work.
In light of the above information, the issue of differentiating between bacteria and viruses has long been a concern in medicine. Until recently, there was no solution to this problem. However, MeMed, a leading company in the medical diagnostics space, recently developed a blood test for bacterial vs viral diagnosis. This test has been found to be effective, fast, and convenient. It can also be used as a lab test for viral infection.
Differentiating Between Viral and Bacterial Infections
Why It’s Difficult to Distinguish Between the Two
One of the reasons why the virus vs bacteria problem has confounded professionals in the medical space for such a long time is the similarity between viral and bacterial infections.
Often, the two types of infections will be accompanied by the same set of symptoms. These include fever, sneezing, diarrhoea, vomiting, coughing, and inflammation. These symptoms are the outward signs of the body’s efforts at getting rid of foreign disease-causing organisms. The body reacts in the same way whether the organisms are bacteria or virus, resulting in confoundingly similar signs and symptoms.
Another reason why a bacterial infection might be mistaken for a viral one and vice versa is that the two have common methods of transmission. Bacteria or viruses can be transmitted by physical contact such as kissing, by coming into contact with contaminated surfaces, or by contact with infected animals.
Adding to the above challenges is the fact that some diseases – such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and meningitis – can be caused by both.
So, against the above-illustrated odds, how is the all-important distinction made? How does the MeMed-developed blood test for bacterial vs viral diagnosis work?
How a Lab Test for Viral Infection Works
Bacteria and viruses are both microbes – microscopic organisms.
However, they are fundamentally different. Bacteria are complex organisms, with multiple components. In addition, not all bacteria cause disease. In fact, most bacteria are harmless, with some of them being helpful, for example in the digestion of food.
Viruses, on the other hand, are simple organisms. They can’t survive on their own and depend on a host. Usually, they reproduce by hijacking and reprogramming other cells in the body.
The body has advanced immune systems and reacts to any foreign organisms. We’ve already seen how it mechanically tries to expel these organisms, for example through vomiting and coughing. However, it also releases chemicals to aid in the action against foreign organisms.
Rather than testing for the disease-causing microbes themselves, MeMed’s solution relies on the body’s reaction for diagnosis. The chemicals that the body releases when dealing with a virus will have different proteins from the ones released when dealing with bacteria.
This method is reliable, and is helping deal with the antibiotic resistance problem.