Incubation periods of viral gastroenteritis: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Accurate knowledge of incubation period is important to investigate and to control infectious diseases and their transmission, however statements of incubation period in the literature are often uncited, inconsistent, and/or not evidence based.

Methods

In a systematic review of the literature on five enteric viruses of public health importance, we found 256 articles with incubation period estimates, including 33 with data for pooled analysis.

Results

We fit a log-normal distribution to pooled data and found the median incubation period to be 4.5 days (95% CI 3.9-5.2 days) for astrovirus, 1.2 days (95% CI 1.1-1.2 days) for norovirus genogroups I and II, 1.7 days (95% CI 1.5-1.8 days) for sapovirus, and 2.0 days (95% CI 1.4-2.4 days) for rotavirus.

Conclus

SUBMITTER: Lee RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3849296 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature