III - A. Virology | 26. Slow viral diseases

Question 1

I. Basics
1. What are Slow Viruses?

Answer 1

Slow Viruses= virus or virus-like agent that after latency, follows a slow, progressive course spanning months to years frequently involving CNS

Question 2

I. Basics
2. What are the 4 features of slow infections?

Answer 2

Question 3

II. Conventional slow infection
1. What are the features of Conventional slow infection?

Answer 3

Question 4

II. Conventional slow infection
2. What are the 4 viruses cause conventional slow infections?

Answer 4

Question 5

II. Conventional slow infection
3. What are the features of HIV?

Answer 5

HIV – slow infection in CNS – AIDS demetia

Question 6

II. Conventional slow infection
4. What are the features of Morbilli virus (measles)?

Answer 6

Morbilli virus (measles) – Subacute sclerotising panencephalitis (SSPE) in some cases, years after the acute infection

Question 7

II. Conventional slow infection
5. What are the features of Rubela virus?

Answer 7

Rubela virus – Progressive rubella panencephalitis (PRP)

Question 8

II. Conventional slow infection
6. What are the features of JC virus?

Answer 8

JC virus
- Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) in inimmunosupressed

Question 9

III. Non-conventional slow infections
1. What are the features of Non-conventional slow infections?

Answer 9

caused by other agents eg. prions

Question 10

III. Non-conventional slow infections
2. What are the features of prion?

Answer 10

Question 11

III. Non-conventional slow infections
3. What is the disease caused by prion?

Answer 11

• Misfolded proteins with the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal variants of the same protein
  → Amyloid plaques are formed in the CNS – neurodegeneration
• Vacuolas in neurons, astrocyte proliferaton, fusion of neurons with glia
• Spongiform encephalitis – brain tissue becomes spongy

Question 12

III. Non-conventional slow infections
4. How does prion spread?

Answer 12

Question 13

III. Non-conventional slow infections
5. What are symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of Non-conventional slow infections?

Answer 13

• Sy: memory impairment, progressive dementia, personality changes, difficulties with movement
• D: imaging of CNS eg. MRI, EEG, detection of proteins from CSF
• Treatment: not available, fatal outcome

Question 14

III. Non-conventional slow infections
6. What are the examples of Non-conventional slow infections?

Answer 14