Latency and Aborted Rabies

The incubation period for rabies varies from a week to over a year. ¹ – ¹⁰ During this period virus may be quiescent or “latent,” that is, not cause overt disease. Latency is thus the stage in which the presence of infection cannot be detected by ordinary intravitam diagnostic methods and is not always distinguishable from long incubation periods. Infection can only be demonstrated in retrospect by the emergence of overt disease (Figure 1). ¹¹ – ¹⁵ Figure 1 Host response to rabies. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203736371/00fe4a2d-905d-4a99-ae8f-b71c8e512415/content/fig9_1.tif"/>