latency periods of viruses

[Tim Fitzmaurice]

On 25 Jun 1995, Yelnif wrote:

> HIV does not have a latency period.  It is a chronic infection.  That is,
> the HIV virus is continually replicating.  The only human virus that I
> know of that is prooven to be latent is the herpes virus.
All seven of them (soon to be eight perhaps), and all the veterinary ones.
Latency is the unifying characteristic of the herpesvirus family, and is
a fairly specific one, but often tends to get used as a term to describe any
quiescent/persistent/lowlevel state in casual conversation.

Tim