Slow Viruses Case Summary

For the chapter 7 Nagami readings we covered a case of a slow virus attacking the brain of a patient. The virus involved was measles which the patient acquired while she was in an orphanage in India. The measles developed into a slow viral infection. In this the symptoms are masked as the patient does not appear to be suffering from the disease. The disease is replicating but it does not overwhelm the body. In this case the disease did not begin to manifest until the patient had finished her first year of college. It began with a reduction of eyesight and moved to the loss of cognitive functions. Slow viruses also know as Lentivirus are different from regular viruses due to the less aggressive nature of the infections. Unlike a normal virus that quickly attacks the body and can bring about death on a rapid pace slow viruses take their time. They generally take a long time to manifest symptoms. The problem with this is that by the time symptoms become apparent they have completely become entrenched in the human body and have worked their way to the brain or subverted the body in some other manner. This makes them particularly deadly. In the case from this chapter Dr. Nagami had to administer interferon directly to the brain in the …show more content…
Some like in this chapter are broken versions of normal viral infections. In this chapter it was a broken version of measles. Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy which is caused by the JC papovavirus is another slow virus. It causes problems with gait, speaking, seizures and dementia. Patients usually die within weeks of being diagnosed with the disease. Another example of a slow virus is the human T-cell leukemia virus. The two most known slow viruses are HIV which subverts the immune system of the body and rabies. Rabies is fatal if not treated. The disease attacks the central nervous system like other slow viruses death is rapid once a diagnosis has been made of the