Cool, eloquent, short letters brought up as likely to go viral in unhealthy way (9)
I believe the answer is:
influenza
'cool eloquent short letters' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how they can define each other.
'brought up as likely to go viral in unhealthy way' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'in' is found in the answer.
'way' could be 'flue' (flue is a kind of way) and 'flue' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for influenza that I've seen before include "Viral infection" , "Winter virus disease, even birds get it" , "Common infection" , "Viral complaint" , "respiratory ailment" .)