WordNet
n. a virus that remains dormant in the body for a long time before symptoms appear; "kuru is caused by a slow virus"
Wikipedia
A slow virus is a virus, or a viruslike agent, etiologically associated with a disease, having a long incubation period of months to years and then a gradual onset of symptoms which progress slowly but irreversibly and terminate in a severe compromised state or, more commonly, death.
A slow virus disease is a disease that, after an extended period of latency, follows a slow, progressive course spanning months to years, frequently involving the central nervous system and ultimately leading to death. Examples include the Visna-Maedi virus, in the genus Lentivirus (family Retroviridae), that causes encephalitis and chronic pneumonitis in sheep, and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis which is apparently caused by the measles virus, as well as Pagets Disease of Bone (Osteitis Deformans) which is associated with paramyxoviridae, especially RSV and Rubeola (Measles).
Usage examples of "slow virus".
Thomas had kept copies of his deathbed scan file-off-line, in vaults in Geneva and New York-with no explicit purpose in mind, other than the vaguest notion that if something went irreparably wrong with his model, and the source of the problem-a slow virus, a subtle programming error-rendered all of his snapshots suspect, starting life again with no memories since 2045 would be better than nothing.
A slow virus which emerged at last to make the body devour itself as in a spasm of biological self-hatred.
To accept a slow virus purge and aging reset would be to lay down a banner she has carried for half a century.
Rumour is spreading throughout gated shelter communities in the American mid-west: a vaccine against senescence, a slow virus coded in the genome that evolution hasn’.
Thomas had kept copies of his deathbed scan fileoff-line, in vaults in Geneva and New Yorkwith no explicit purpose in mind, other than the vaguest notion that if something went irreparably wrong with his model, and the source of the problema slow virus, a subtle programming errorrendered all of his snapshots suspect, starting life again with no memories since 2045 would be better than nothing.