Latent period (epidemiology)

In some diseases, as depicted in this diagram, the latent period is shorter than the incubation period. In such cases, a person can transmit infection without showing any signs of the disease and is called subclinically infectious or an asymptomatic carrier

In epidemiology, particularly in the discussion of infectious disease dynamics (modeling), the latent period (also known as the latency period or the pre-infectious period) is the time interval between when an individual or host is infected by a pathogen and when that individual becomes infectious, i.e. capable of transmitting pathogens to other susceptible individuals.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ Kenrad E. Nelson; Carolyn Masters Williams, eds. (2014), Infectious disease epidemiology: Theory and Practice (3rd ed.), Jones & Bartlett Learning, p. 135-136
  2. ^ Emilia Vynnycky; Richard G. White (2010), An Introduction to Infectious Disease Modelling, Oxford University Press, p. 2-3
  3. ^ Michael Y. Li (2018), An Introduction to Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases, Springer International Publishing AG, p. 25