Medical researchers found that the incubation period for people infected with the novel coronavirus could reach up to 24 days, which is 10 days longer than the previously believed of 14 days, reported The Independent.
Incubation period means the time between coronavirus entering the body and the last point at which it could cause symptoms.
The study, as published in the scientific journal The Lancet, was written by 37 specialists, including Dr. Zhong Nanshan, who was appointed by China’s National Health Commission to lead with the novel coronavirus ravaging the country.
The World Health Organization (WHO) explained during a press briefing last February 10 that this might be caused by ‘second exposures’.
However, WHO stressed that they will not change its recommendation of the current incubation period.
Researchers extracted data from 1,099 coronavirus patients from 522 hospitals across 31 regional provinces in China.
According to China’s National Health Commission, a patient in the Henan province was diagnosed of the deadly virus after 17 days.
The research titled, ‘Clinical Characteristics of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Infection in China’, concluded that virus believed to have originated from Wuhan “spreads rapidly by human-to-human transmission” and its severity proved that efforts to contain it were “unsuccessful”.
