The innate immunity i e phagocytosis is not particularly good at dealing with viruses In fact it has been argued in Delves and Sompayrac for starters that the adaptive immune system evolved to defend us against these little bastards Your are right about phagocytes mopping up after wards but it is the lymphocytes that control virus infections So not really part of this article as such But your are right Some readers will wonder about viruses so the article needs to mention them more if only to say that phagocytes can t handle them alone This will not be difficult to add and I will write it today With regard to green snot during a viral infection secondary bacterial infections opportunistically infecting the damaged tissues are no doubt to blame Talk