In medicine, the window period for a test designed to detect a specific disease (particularly infectious disease) is the time between first infection and when the test can reliably detect that infection. In antibody-based testing, the window period is dependent on the time taken for seroconversion.
The window period is important to epidemiology and safe sex strategies, and in blood and organ donation, because during this time, an infected person or animal cannot be detected as infected but may still be able to infect others. For this reason, the most effective disease-prevention strategies combine testing with a waiting period longer than the test's window period.
Famous quotes containing the words window and/or period:
“The jeweled stripes on the window ran straight down when the train stopped and got more and more oblique as it speeded up. The wheels rumbled in her head, saying Man-hattan Tran-sfer Man-hattan Tran-sfer.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“This [new] period of parenting is an intense one. Never will we know such responsibility, such productive and hard work, such potential for isolation in the caretaking role and such intimacy and close involvement in the growth and development of another human being.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion and Dennie Palmer (20th century)