The invention provides antisense antiviral compounds and methods of their use in inhibition of growth of viruses of the picornavirus, calicivirus, togavirus and flavivirus families, as in treatment of a viral infection. The antisense antiviral compounds are substantially uncharged oligomers having a targeting base sequence that is substantially complementary to a viral target sequence which spans the AUG start site of the first open reading frame of the viral genome.
