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Nearly all strains of influenza A virus currently circulating in the U.S. are resistant to either adamantanes or neuraminidase inhibitors. Concern about the potential development of multidrug resistance and the suboptimal efficacy of individual drugs led researchers (several of them employees of a pharmaceutical company) to test the interactions of three antiviral drugs that have different mechanisms of action and act at different stages in the viral life cycle.
Various concentrations of oseltamivir, amantadine, and ribavirin were used alone or in combination in several in vitro tests involving three strains of influenza A virus. The tested viruses — wild-type versions of seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 strains and an avian strain of H5N1 — did not c…