Variability of Zika virus incubation period in humans

Abstract

Zika virus (ZIKV) has recently emerged in numerous tropical countries worldwide. In this study, we estimated ZIKV incubation period distribution using time-to-event models adapted to interval-censored data based on declared date of travels from 123 symptomatic travelers returning from areas with active ZIKV transmission. The median time and 95th percentile of ZIKV incubation period was estimated to 6.8 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.8–7.7 days) and 15.4 days (95% CI, 12.7–19.7 days), respectively. Determining the incubation period for ZIKV is beneficial to improve protection guidelines.