Bacteria or Virus ?

It was 10 past 10 on a rainy Sunday night, I wasn't feeling comfortable about my self-medication wherein I was on Antibiotics and Paracetamol for past 1 and a half days. So I decided to call my (Doctor) friend who had finished his medical exams and was on his 1 year Internship,but was afraid to do so fearing he might have had a night duty or attending a patient in an OT because I recalled one of my friends saying that his friend who was also an intern in the same college was in ICU yesterday for 4 hrs. I never faced this type of situation in making a call to my friend prior to this month, as he was a normal MBBS student before but now he is almost a doctor literally.

But soon I came out with a solution for this dilemma and I decided to call him.The funda was to give a ring which sounded(may be lasted) more than a Miss Call and at the same time never give him a chance to pick up the call; so that if he is busy he would not answer the call back and if not he wouldn't mind giving a miss call back.This worked out and I received a call after some 10 mins but as I was guessing he was in OT working in Night Shift.So I started to clarify my doubts about what I had done in last 2 days.

After a couple of handshaking signals and acknowledgments (ಉಭಯಕುಶಲೋಪರಿ) I came to the point.I started to speak in general about Viral fever and Bacterial fever. He explained my first question "Diff b/w Viral and Bacterial Fever" beautifully which made my prejudiced thoughts more clear.Yes I have some knowledge about Viral and Bacteria fever and some problems caused by worms and parasites so it wasn't difficult for me to digest his Medico-English lines.

Viral fevers/infections are caused by viruses and the medicine for curing viral diseases is still in its research stage.Surprised?? Its true. No medicine till date can prevent/cure virus linked diseases coz of the unpredictable nature of these viruses. Once the drug to combat virus is invented even AIDS can be cured :) But Bacterial diseases/fever/disorders can be 'Rx'ed :)

So I asked him what if I go to a doctor and say I am sick and I have fever with cold from past 24 hrs, How does he know whether it's a viral or bacterial fever?" his acceptable answer "Even the doctor can't judge that, so he prescribes a paracetamol along with an Anti Bacterial drug( popularly known as an Anti Biotic) .This is because of the below two cases:

1) If it's a bacterial fever then it's cent percent sure that the antibiotic attacks bacteria and the illness is cured
2) If it's a viral fever then though antibiotics have no affect on viruses they(antibiotics) prevent the further infection of new bacteria as a patient suffering from viral fever is more susceptible to attract harmful bacteria.

Finally I got to know the Ram BaNa (ರಾಮ್ ಬಾಣ) of Doctors' prescription.
Overall the discussion with him made me proud about myself of having a doctor friend and yes about the ViroBacteria too ;)