Odd thread this, but I'm gonna add my tuppence . . . .
Antibiotics aren't given for viral illnesses like flu . . . . only for bacterial infections that may not get better on their own. However, historically some viral infections then weakened the immune system so that bacterial infections got their chance, causing potentially serious infections . . . like rheumatic fever - which does lead to heart disease in later life!
Ordinary, hum drum medics I don't think are actually that interested in viral infections - after all, the get better on their own, generally.
And to give western medicine some credit, it is doing fairly well against cancer, HIV can generally be stopped from developing into AIDS, its trying hard with alzheimer's and parkinson's and type 1 diabetes is no longer a fatal illness - to mention just a few, of the top of my head.
