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(medicine) The period of time required for the development of symptoms of a disease after infection, or of altered reactivity after exposure to an allergen.
(vertebrate zoology) The brooding period required to bring an egg to hatching.
The lapsed time between exposure to an infectious agent and the onset of symptoms of a disease.
The time that elapses between the invasion of a susceptible host by an infectious agent and the onset of symptoms of the disease caused by that agent is called the incubation period. The term is also used to describe the comparable period in the life cycle of parasitic pathogens that have an intermediate host. In such cases the phase is sometimes referred to as an extrinsic incubation period; while this time period in a human host is called an intrinsic incubation period. The length of the incubation period varies greatly; it could be a few hours in the case of staphylococcal food poisoning, many months for a disease such as rabies, or even years for leprosy. The latent period in the mosquito intermediate host of the malaria parasite is temperature-dependent; some pathologens (including malaria parasites) can survive during the prolonged hibernation of the insect vector during the cool dry season.
(SEE ALSO: Latent Period)
— JOHN M. LAST
The amount of time it takes for symptoms of a disease to appear after an individual is infected (see infection) with the pathogen that causes the disease.
Incubation period, also called the latent period or latency period, is the time elapsed between exposure to a pathogenic organism, or chemical or radiation, and when symptoms and signs are first apparent. The period may be as short as minutes, to as long as thirty years in the case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
While Latent or Latency period may be synonymous, a distinction is sometimes made between Incubation period - the period between infection and clinical onset of the disease- and Latent period -the time from infection to infectiousness. Which is shorter depends on the disease.
A person may be a carrier of a disease, such as Streptococcus in the throat without exhibiting any symptoms. Depending on the disease, the person may or may not be able to give the disease to others during the incubation period.
Incubation periods can vary greatly, and are generally expressed as a range. When possible, it is best to express the mean and the 10th and 90th percentiles, though this information is not always available. The values below are arranged roughly in ascending order by number of days, although in some cases the mean had to be inferred.
For many conditions, incubation periods are longer in adults than they are in children or infants.
| Disease | Incubation period | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Cellulitis caused by Pasteurella multocida | less than 1 day | [1] |
| Cholera | 1-3 days | [2] |
| Influenza | 1-4 days | [3] |
| Scarlet fever | 1-4 days | [4] |
| Common cold | 2-5 days | [5] |
| Ebola | 2-21 days | |
| Rocky Mountain spotted fever | 2-14 days | [6] |
| SARS | up to 10 days | [7] |
| Roseola | 5-15 days | [8] |
| Polio | 7-14 days | [9] |
| Pertussis | 7-14 days | [10] |
| Measles | 9-12 days | [11] |
| Smallpox | 7-17 days | [12] |
| Generalized tetanus | 7-21 days | [13] |
| Chicken pox | 14-16 days | [14] |
| Erythema infectiosum (Fifth Disease) | 13-18 days | [15] |
| Mumps | 14-18 days | [16] |
| Rubella (German measles) | 14-21 days | [17] |
| Infectious mononucleosis | 28-42 days | [18] |
| Kuru | mean between 10.3 and 13.2 years | [19] |
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 | Sci-Tech Dictionary. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Copyright © 2003, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1978, 1976, 1974 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Encyclopedia of Public Health. Encyclopedia of Public Health. Copyright © 2002 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Health Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Incubation period". Read more |
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