Bacterial or viral

Bacterial and viral infections can both cause similar symptoms such as malaise, fever, and chills. It can be difficult, even for a doctor to distinguish which is the cause of a specific infection. It's important to distinguish, because viral infections cannot be cured by antibiotics


Comparison of viral and bacterial infection

Characteristic :
Typical symptoms


Viral

In general, viral infections are systemic. This means they involve many different parts of the body or more than one body system at the same time; i.e. a runny nose, sinus congestion, cough, fever, body aches etc.They can be local at times as in viral conjunctivitis or "pink eye" and herpes. Only a few viral infections are painful, like herpes. The pain of viral infections is often described as itchy or burning.,

Bacterial

The classic symptoms of a bacterial infection are localized Redness, Heat, Swelling and Pain. In ancient Rome the terms were; Rubor, Calor, Turgor, and Dolor. One of the hallmarks of a bacterial infection is local pain, pain that is in a specific part of the body. For example,if you get cut and the cut gets infected with a bacterium, it will be painful right where the infection is. If you have a sore throat and the infection is bacterial, one side of the throat is often more sore than the other. An ear infection is usually bacterial if one ear hurts and the other doesn't. An infection that produces pus is always bacterial.

Cause

Pathogenic viruses
Pathogenic bacteria