The next time you are down with fever, don’t presume it’s a viral and pop over-the-counter fever pills from your medicine box. “Taking common cold and cough medicines will not help if your fever is bacterial,” says Dr S K Aggarwal, internal medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi. And vice versa, using antibiotics meant for bacterial fevers doesn’t work on a viral fever.

The symptom check
When you have a viral fever you will suffer from a scratchy throat, runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, headaches, minor aches and pains, tiredness or fatigue.
A bacterial fever, however, is much worse and mostly affects the throat. “The throat gets sore and sometimes produces pus. One finds it difficult to swallow as the glands in the neck swell up. The fever is very high, and there is persistent coughing, wheezing or breathlessness,” says Dr Aggarwal.

While a viral fever will usually get better on its own and go away in five to seven days, a bacterial fever will make you feel worse by the day and not go away without the help of antibiotics.
Unlike a viral fever, a bacterial fever is very serious and if proper medication is not taken on time, it could get much worse. “The symptoms are more or less the same. It’s just that the degree of seriousness of the condition is more in a bacterial fever,” says Dr Aggarwal.