Time from infection to disease and infectiousness for Ebola Virus Disease
Citation: Velásquez GE, Aibana O, Ling EJ, Diakite I, Mooring EQ, Murray MB. Time from infection to disease and infectiousness for Ebola virus disease, a systematic review. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2015 Oct 1;61(7):1135-40.
Summary: This short report summarises a systematic review to find information from which to estimate the incubation and latent periods of Ebola virus disease (EVD). However, there is only limited epidemiological data from discrete 1-day exposures.
Definitions for infectious period (ending upon resolution of wet symptoms or at the time of death), incubation period and latent period are given. Eighteen papers were identified which gave information about single-day exposures, and many of these occurred in healthcare settings. Overall, studies which met their inclusion criteria provided support for a mean incubation period of 6.2 days with a range of 10 to 15 days. The studies reviewed suggest that dry symptoms precede wet ones by 6.1 days.