[Disease concept of the slow virus infection].

This article gives a brief history of the terminology of slow virus infection, the conceptual change that occurred in it, the features common to slow infection and the current concept of slow virus infection. Björn Sigurdsson from the field of veterinary medicine proposed slow virus infection as unique mode of infection in 1954. Its initial concept was remodeled along with the general acceptance of prion theory of sheep scrapie that was proposed in 1982. The features common to slow infection include very long latency, unanimous poor prognosis, central nervous system involvement, etc. Currently the slow infection comprises those caused by slow conventional viruses that is the slow virus infection (for example subacute sclerosing panencephalitis and progressive multifocal encephalopathy in human and visna-maedi in sheep) and prion diseases (for example kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome in human, scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy).