Any docs or nurses around for some advice on temp and antibiotics?

[LovesBeingWearingSkinnyJeans]

Dd has had a cold for a couple of weeks and a terrible all night cough all week. Been very tired as axresult and also had a temp all week. Nurofen works on her temp, calpol not doing anything. Gp checked her chest yesterday and that's fine, throat us a little red but he said defo not croup as only coughing at night. He said virus and expects her to be starting to get better.

He did however give me a prescription for antibiotics just incase she got worse.

So my questions are;

She has woken after 15 hrs of sleep with a temp of 39.8 plus hallucinating, nurofen has got temp down to 38 so does she now need them or not?

If it is a virus she wouldn't need them would she they wouldn't do abything so why give the script?

Tia

A cold does not produce that kind of temp. 15 hours and hallucinating? If it was one of mine, I would get them checked over again, things can move quickly in children.

I think the antibiotics are firstly to prevent secondary infection and secondly to fight the infection if it happens to be bacterial. Without tests, the doc cannot know for sure. I suspect the "it's just a virus" means it is 95% likely to be a virus and 5% likely to be bacterial.