The Long and Short Incubation Periods ofPlasmodium vivaxMalaria in Korea: The Characteristics and Relating Factors

Abstract

BackgroundThe cases of Plasmodium vivax malaria in Korea are mixed with long and short incubation periods. This study aims to define clinico-epidemiologic chracteristcs of Plasmodium vivax malaria in Korea.Materials and MethodsWe selected the civilian cases infected with P. vivax malaria in Korea from the epidemiological investigation data of 2001 to 2010, whose incubation periods could be estimated. The long and short incubation periods were defined by duration of infection and onset time, and the cases were compared by demographic factors and clinical symptom, infection and onset time. The correlation was analyzed between the proportion of cases in the infected region with the long incubation period and meteorological factors along with latitude.ResultsThe length of the mean short and long incubation periods for the cases were 25.5 days and 329.4 days, respectively. The total number of the study subjects was 897, and the number cases of short and long incubation periods was 575 (64.1%) and 322 (35.9%), respectively. The aspect of incubation period showed a significant difference by region of infection; there was a higher proportion of long incubation period infection cases in Gangwon-do than in Gyeonggi-do and Incheon. The proportion of long incubation period cases showed significant correlation with latitude and temperature of August and September of the infected regions.ConclusionsIncubation period of P. vivax malaria in Korea showed significant difference by infected region, infection and onset time and the proportion of long incubation period cases showed significant correlation with latitude and meteorological factors of the infected regions.

Estimating the Transmittable Prevalence of Infectious Diseases Using a Back-Calculation Approach

“…Kim et al (2013) obtained the similar results with a shorter mean incubation period than Nishiura et al (2007). An estimate of transmittable prevalence with the incubation periods of Kim et al (2013) will change the results.…”

“…Kim et al (2013) obtained the similar results with a shorter mean incubation period than Nishiura et al (2007). An estimate of transmittable prevalence with the incubation periods of Kim et al (2013) will change the results. This possibility is partly covered in the confidence interval computations in Sections 2.3 and 4 by considering the uncertainty of the survival functions that originated from the estimated pdf of Nishiura et al (2007).…”

Early Management of Malaria in the Context of Elimination: Observations from Chitwan Medical College, Nepal

“…A study in Korea found median short incubation of P. vivax malaria at 18 days and median long incubation at 332 days. 5 So our case would be extreme if considered to be imported. Each case was passed on from the hospital to public health authorities to investigate this further and treat the local surrounding area as appropriate.…”

The distribution of incubation and relapse times in experimental human infections with the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax

“…These two groups of institutionalized patients had mosquito-transmitted infections with defined exposure dates and complete follow-up [ 12 ]. Data for the infections with long-latency (extended incubation periods) were extracted from three published studies that involved two unrelated temperate strains; one involved drug prophylaxis [ 14 ], two were observational studies with inferred exposure dates [ 15 , 16 ], and all include extensive interval censoring in reported event times.…”