Flu shots are the best prevention against flu.
Click here to read more. Until recently, the best you could do once you got the flu was to crawl into bed, treat your symptoms, keep your fever under control and try to ride out your bout with the flu as best you could. There were no medications to kill the flu virus, and antibiotics were not effective against it because they only kill bacteria, not viruses. But they need to be given within 48 hours of the beginning of flu symptoms, so if you are experiencing symptoms , you need to contact your physician quickly. If the drugs are given more than 48 hours after symptoms have flared, they're not as effective.