A viral translation initiation mechanism where ribosomes are loaded onto viral mRNA at the 5'-cap structure and start scanning for a short distance before by-passing the large internal leader region and initiating at a downstream start site.
Source:PMID:18195037,
PMID:15827182,
VZ:608
Comment
This term is intended to annotate gene products involved in the process of viral translational shunt, not viral proteins produced by this translation process.