slow virus

In medicine, one of a group of viruses that cause disorders of the central nervous system and take many years to develop. Gradual and widespread damage of nerve tissue is followed eventually by a loss of brain function and death. Slow viruses are implicated in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and a type of meningitis.

The agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have sometimes been classified as slow viruses, but are now known to be prions.