The Medical Research Institute is holding trials to test whether paracetamol helps to fight the flu, or prolong it.
Eighty volunteers with early influenza symptoms will be treated with either paracetamol or a placebo.
The trials are to test whether treating flu with a medicine that reduces fever, such as paracetamol, makes the illness worse, by prolonging the survival of viruses in the body.
Preliminary results are expected by the end of the year.
