Antibodies are effective against viruses only during the extracellular stage of the lives of these microbes. Viruses may be extracellular early in the course of infection, before they infect host cells, or when they are released from infected cells by virus budding or if the infected cells die. Antiviral antibodies bind to viral envelope or capsid antigens and function mainly as neutralizing antibodies to prevent virus attachment and entry into host cells. Thus, antibodies prevent both initial infection and cell- to-cell spread.