Azithromycin is both an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory drug. Usually when people say anti-inflammatory drugs, they mean anti-bacterial drugs, which means drugs that kill bacteria or inhibit their growth and treat bacterial infections, or antibacterial drugs for short. Most antibacterial drugs or anti-inflammatory drugs are chemicals produced by microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, during the process of growth and reproduction that kill or inhibit the growth of other microorganisms, hence the name antibiotics. After the discovery of these natural antibiotics produced by microorganisms, many artificial semi-synthetic antibiotics have been artificially processed and modified. There are also some anti-inflammatory drugs that are not produced by microorganisms or modified by human processing, but are entirely invented and created by humans, so they are also called synthetic antibacterial drugs, not antibiotics. Azithromycin is an artificial semi-synthetic antibiotic, so it is also an anti-inflammatory drug.