Can Sophos AV for Mac Protect a VM (Win 8)?

I run Sophos AV on my Mac and it seems to scrutinize anything that comes into the machine from the Internet. I run Windows 8 inside of a virtual machine using Parallels Desktop. Does my Mac Sophos protect downloads that come into the virirtual machine?

I ask because I also run Microsoft Defender on the VM and it is something of a resource hog. It seems to me that running two antivirus programs is like wearing a belt with suspenders. Windows apps see a download coming is just as they would on a nuts and bolts machine. The communication is mediated by an OS X Parallels process that I suspect is monitored by Sophos AV.

Also, I use Windows for only a couple of business applications--Quickbooks and Microsoft Streets & Trips. The only browsing I do is to Intuit forums. The only email use is sending quotes using Thunderbird for Windows. Thanks for your wisdom.

 

Sophos won't be enough. For various reasons, the simplest of all is that it can't delete virus or prevent them from running on the Windows side.

 

I suspected something like that. However Sophos quarantines these on the Mac side. I have gotten email attachments with Windows malware caught this way. So my thought was that they would not reach Windows at all. Oh well.