INCUBATION PERIOD OF DISEASES

Incubation period of diseases is a very,very HIGH YIELD TOPIC in Microbiology, Community medicine and Infectious diseases in medicine.
Year after year, questions on this topic are asked in NEET-PG, AIIMS and other PG exams.

Questions can be asked as direct one-liners or can be asked as a clinical vignette where the incubation period of diseases is a valuable clue.

Learn this table by heart. Either bookmark this table or get a print out, or better still, note this down in your REVISION NOTES.

Do let us know in the comments below if we missed any disease from this table.
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SR NO.	DISEASES	CAUSATIVE ORGANISM	INCUBATION PERIOD(IP)
1	Chicken pox	Human (alpha) Herpes virus 3	14-16 Days
2	Measies (Rubeolla)	RNA Paramyxovirus	10-14 days
3	Rubella (German measies)	RNA Togavirus	14-21 Days
4	Mumps	RNA Myxovirus	14-21 Days
5	Influenza	Orthomyxovirus	18-72 Days
6	Diphtheria	Cornynebacterium diphtheriae	2-6 days
7	Pertussis (Whooping cough)	Bordetella pertussis	7-14 days
8	Meningococcal meningitis	Neisseria meningitis	3-4 days
9	SARS	Coronavirus	3-5 days
10	Tuberculosis	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	weeks-years
11	Poliomyelitis	Poliovirus	7-14 days
12	Hepatitis A	Enterovirus 72 (Picoenavirus)	15-45 days
13	Hepatitis B	Hepadna virus	45-180 days
14	Hepatitis C	Hepacivirus	30-120 days
15	Cholera	Vibrio cholerae	1-2 days
16	Typhoid fever	Salmonella typhi	10-14 days
17	staphylococcal food poisoning	Staphylococcus aureus	1-6 hours
18	Ascariasis	Ascaris Lumbricoides	2 months
19	Ancyclostomiasis (Hookworrm)	A. duodenale	5 weeks – 9 months

20	Malaria	Plasmodium vivax	8-17 days
21		Plasmodium Falciparum	9-14 days
22		Plasmodium malariae	18-40 days
23		Plasmodium ovale	16-18 days
24	Lymphatic Filariasis	Wuchereria bancroti	8-16 months
25	Rabies	Lyssavirus type 1(Rhabdovirus)	3-8 weeks
26	Yellow fever	Flavivirus fibricus	2-6 days
27	Japanese encephalitis	Group B arbovirus (flavivirus)	5-15 days
28	KFD	Arbovirus (flavivirus)	3-8 days
29	Chikungunya fever	Chikungunyavirus (Arbovirus A)	4-7 days
30	Leptospirosis	Leptospira interrogans	4-20 days
31	Bubonic plague	Yersinia pestis	2-7 days
32	Pneumonic plague	Yersinia pestis	1-3 days
33	Septicemic plague	Yersinia pestis	2-7 days
34	Scrub typhae	Rickettsia tsutsugsmushi	10-12 days
35	Q fever	Coxiella burnetti	2-3 weeks
36	Teniasis (Tapeworms)	T.solium , T. saginate	5-14 weeks
37	Leishmaniasis (Kala azar)	L.donovani	1-4 months
38	Trachoma	Chiamydia trachomatis	5-12 days
39	Teranus	Clostridium tetani	6-10 days
40	Yaws	Treponemia pertenue	3-5 weeks
41	HIV/AIDS	HIV/HTLV -III/LAV	months -10 years
42	Swine flu	HN type A influenza	1-4 days
43	Crimean congo fever	Nairovirus (Buniyavirus)	1-9 days
44	H7N6 influenza	H2N3 Type A influenza	1-10 days
45	MERS	Betacoronavirus	12 days
46	Ebola disease	Ebolavirus	2-21 days
47	Anthrax	Bacillus anthracis	1-7 days
48	Brucellosis	Brucella melitensis	5-60 days
49	COVID-19	Novel Coronavirus	2-14 days